Believing In The Impossible
by WriKai
Summary: It was real... It was all real... Angels and Demons and hellhounds and monsters and WHAT IN THE HELL DO THEY ALL HAVE TO DO WITH ME? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS? Starts during season 7, technically, but the majority of the main storyline actually starts between 8x18 and 8x19. Will be Castiel/OC Please read and review!
1. When I First Met God

**I do not own Supernatural or any of the characters, so please don't sue. However, I do own the OC, and I will gladly intermix her with the SPN world!**

The first time I ever truly believed God existed was when I met him. It was two years after my mom left, and almost a year since the rest of my family died.

I didn't believe in God before that. I believed that Earth was simply a living Hell or Purgatory, that I'd already died and was being eternally punished in a universe where everybody is punished for being born in to sin.

I didn't know my crimes, but I knew my sentence.

Then I saw God. I hadn't met him yet, but I saw him, almost six months after... The deaths. I was in the back of a church that was protesting two of my best guy friends going on a date. The priest was speaking about how "their lifestyle was a sin," yadda yadda bullshit.

I was in the back, about to stand and protest, when he appeared. God in a tan overcoat, with a tie that wasn't quite straight and hair that was a mix between styled and ruffled, somehow. And not the douchey version, but a natural kind.

I sat there, in the back row, and watched as God told him that "he who lies in my name shall choke on their own venemous tongue."

I sat there, in the back row, and watched as the asshole priest that was APPARENTLY getting some good 'ole fashioned gay love on the side, he choked on his own venemous tongue.

Everybody rushed to the priest, running past the man that claimed to be the Lord. He stopped for a minute, cocking his head to the side, and stared at the painted glass art on the walls. When he disappeared, they had changed to his visage.

The priest was dead when the EMTs arrived, but that wasn't important. I couldn't help but try and figure out how he'd done it, the stranger claiming to be the new ruler of the universe. I didn't believe in God just yet. Remember, I only started believing after I met him, and I hadn't met him yet. I'd only borne witness to what I considered the greatest magic trick of all time.

I was honestly thinking that he caused the priest to have some sort of severe allergic reaction. Some people get the whole tongue swelling thing if they're even in the vicinity of peanuts or shrimp. Maybe the guy's pockets were lined with peanut butter, or maybe he had a few shrimp in his pockets.

But the stained glass... He would've had to have gone some night before, and replaced the entire thing completely. Afterwards, maybe he would've had a projection of the original image until the timing was right? Remote in his pocket, next to the shrimp?

It was a crazy theory, but I didn't know what else to believe. God wasn't real to me yet. Miracles didn't happen.

But then miracles started happening. Almost four months later, I got a call from another homeless friend, Rodriguez.

Rodriguez told me the color of the signs and buildings all around him, not too far from the alley he lived in. He told me the color of the sky, the shape of the clouds, the way a donut looks smaller than it feels.

Rodriguez had been blind for almost forty years, according to him.

He said that God had healed him; that the Lord walked among us once more. Rodriguez had always been faithful in the Lord and Jesus and all the Hallelujah bull, so I didn't buy it at first. Not until he started describing said Lord.

Tan overcoat.

Tousled hair.

Blue eyes.

Bit of scruff, as if for a beard.

And apparently sores on his face, now. As though his skin was tearing apart.

That's when I did research. I had a friend on the force that I asked questions to, and he said he couldn't tell me anything. Ongoing investigation. Crosses multiple departments. Big secrets.

But the guy had the same description, and the same actions. He'd show up, do something big like kill a lot of people, and leave. He'd killed off the KKK, motivational speakers, and apparently been present when mass spontaneous healings occurred.

I found him on the internet. He was everywhere, once you found the right trail and the right people. A few people claiming to have seen him, claiming to have spoken with him. Getting a taco. Healing a kid. Disappearing.

I knew some of the stories were bullshit, but then again they were there. I had my proof that something was going on.

For the first time in a long time, I sat myself down and prayed. Two months of research and talking to people had gotten me nowhere on finding a pattern or him, so I said "fuck it, let's try the prayer shit."

"Dear God," I started, standing in the middle of an alley somewhere in downtown NYC. Then I stopped, realizing I didn't know what to say or do. What do you do when you pray?

"I don't know how to do this well." I decided, sticking with the truth. "I don't know how to pray, or believe properly, or anything that you would expect from someone trying to get a phone call with you. Hell, I don't even know what to say." I shrugged, keeping my eyes open and my head facing skyward.

"I guess I'll start with thank you." I decided. "For the church guy who was preaching against homosexuality when he was getting some dick on the side. That guy and his flock had been harassing some other homeless friends of mine. Thank you for making him stop, for revealing that it doesn't matter whether Harry likes Sally or Joe.

"Thank you for the KKK, for stopping them and causing them to disband.

"And thank you for Rodriguez, for healing him. You may not remember who he is, but there was a homeless man on the sidewalk, more than likely begging for change. You stopped by, talked to him, and gave him his sight back. He called me afterwards and told me all these different colors and sights and was so excited that he started talking in Spanish half the time, but he was so happy... I haven't seen or heard Rod be truly that happy until that phone call.

"I don't know if I'm supposed to ask for anything. I feel like when people pray, a lot of times they're asking for forgiveness or help or the winning lotto numbers. I don't like asking people for help, I never have, and even though you're God I still think you're people, kind of, because I've seen people do good things and bad things, and you've done a lot that can be thrown either way, but I'm gonna call the majority of it pretty good and ok by me." I took a deep breath, organizing my thoughts once more.

"So thank you for doing something." I finally said. "Thank you for caring about these people, and for helping my friends. Thank you for showing me that God is here, and that he cares."

I took a deep breath, and waited a few minutes before finally opening my eyes.

As expected, there was nobody around me.

I figured it was probably better that way. After all, what would I do if God magically appeared? Fall to my knees in reverance? Faint? Swear up a storm?

Probably all three.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I had been holding, and started to laugh a little bit. The guy was God, dammit! He must be far too busy to show up to speak with one homeless girl! Rodriguez could've just gotten lucky!

I turned and walked a few feet to my sleeping bag, hidden underneath a mound of cardboard boxes I had constructed to be a small temporary home.

I leaned my back against the brick wall next to it, thinking. I had just prayed. To God. To a figure I hadn't believed existed. And I had said thank-you.

Thank-you to the thing that had stood passively when my family was murdered. My brothers, my dad... I still remembered the black eyes of their killers, still remembered the tripwire in the door that I should've passed through, but didn't. I didn't because I'd left my plate in the family room.

I sank to the ground, ignoring the scratches that the brick inflicted. I had tried to ignore those eyes for so long. Rationalize them. Killers wearing contacts. A trick of the light. The adrenaline of me running for my life from them, running from the screams and deaths and howls of laughter and glee.

Everything has a rational reason. Except why mom flipped out and left, why my family was murdered, and why God now walked the earth.

Other than those, everything had a rational reason.

I didn't even feel the tears on my face until a familiar voice spoke up.

"Why are you crying, child?" He asked. I looked up, and followed the edges of the tan overcoat to the shoulders it sat on. From there, I truly believed that God existed.

It's hard to disprove what's right in front of you.

"Because of what I remember." I replied. His face had sores on it, yes, and I worried for his health. "Are you alright?"

God bypassed my question, coming to sit beside me on the dirty ground. "Tell me what you remember." He requested kindly, holding out a hand. In it was... Food. A PB sandwich, no J. My favorite.

I took it slowly, unsure of what to do. "Thank you." I said, taking a small bite.

It tasted like heaven.

"Please, tell me what makes you so sad." He requested again.

So I told him. I told him about my family and their deaths. I told him that I ran away, like a coward. I ran and ran and ran and never looked back. I knew, somehow, that they would be waiting for me.

And as I told him, told God what lead me to be homeless, I felt something in me lessen as tears continued to fall. It was as if a burden that I had carried, it was gone, if only for a moment.

"Did you mean it?" He asked. I stared at him, confused. "You said thank you. You have not believed for the longest time, you have every reason not to, and yet you took the time to seek me out, to research, to pray and ask for nothing, but instead offer thanks. Did you mean it?"

"Yeah." I said, feeling it to be true. I had meant it. He had done good.

"Thank you."

"Thank me?" I asked.

"There are many who think I am a cruel God," he explained. "A vicious and angry and uncaring God, but I am not that person. I do care for you, for all of you, better than my father did before me."

"God has a dad?" I asked. He didn't answer.

"Here," he said finally, my sandwich long gone. He handed me a small business card, with a name and a number. Dean Winchester. "What happened to your family, call and tell him. He will be able to help you."

"What do you mean?" I asked. He started to rise, and I grabbed his wrist. "Wait!"

He stopped, staring down at me... Differently. No longer like I was a person. I shirked away, suddenly afraid. The second I moved in fear, his whole demeanor suddenly changed, like a ripple effect across his skin. "You are malnourished." He stated, reaching in to his coat. He pulled out another sandwich, and a bottle of water. "Take these." He said, the request being more of a command. I complied wordlessly, still scared of the person, man, being, GOD in front of me. Another sore had broken out, a new one, on his neck.

"Tell them Castiel sent you." He said, dropping a cell phone at my feet.

"Is that your name?" I asked, my eyes leaving him for only a moment to grab the phone. When I looked up, he was gone. "Hello?" I asked, standing to look around. "God? Castiel? Hello?"

Nobody answered. The only proof I had of my not being insane was the food, water, and phone.

And a business card I still held in my hand. I turned it over back and forth, contemplating my choices.

I had a name. Dean Winchester.

I could research him, first. That would give me a better idea of who he was. And after I knew, I would call.


	2. Survival

Months of research later, and I did not call. God dropped off the mat. This new guy, Dick Roman, started hitting the newslight. I'd lost my sleeping bag, my spare clothes, and just the majority of things that weren't essential.

Dean Winchester, and his brother Sam, were killers, and then had subsequently _BEEN_ killed.

A year went by, and things had tried to kill me, twice. It was that reason alone that I still considered calling the number that belonged to a dead man now.

The black eyes... They weren't just made up. They were real. You don't just put in sclera contacts _WHILE_ you were blinking, without using your hands.

I'd tried.

The only thing I knew that hurt them was salt. I'd thrown some in their eyes, at one point the first time they attacked. They recoiled like it burned them, and small bits of smoke came up from their bodies.

I started to carry a shit-ton of salt with me wherever I went after that. Actually, after the first attack, I learned how to make small salt-bombs (don't ask), and made sure I got good at using a rinky kid's slingshot. They worked better than my little pocket knives did.

I was thankful for the prep on the second attack. That one happened almost a month after the first, and I managed to get away with less injuries. That was when I decided that staying in the same place for more than a few days, or a week tops, was not going to work in my favor.

Both times, I prayed to God or Castiel or **_WHATEVER_** he wanted to be called. I got no answer.

He had just dropped out of existence, almost.

A year passed since meeting Castiel. It was weird, near the end of the year it almost seemed like most people were stoned. Made it easier to rob convenience stores, but I didn't like how the food made me feel. Sick and slow, like I was drugged or dying. I stuck with anything fruity that I could steal, which wasn't hard. I had a friend of mine that hadn't attacked me, vegan and homeless, who helped. I didn't pray to God much anymore, besides the random "hey, hope you're alright."

I didn't hear back again, though. At first

Eventually, I was so tired. More attacks had happened. Overall in that year I'd been attacked six more times. Two truckers offering to "pick a pretty lady up," with one of them being surprisingly not a demon but a huge pervert. One of them by what I determined to be a freaky as hell stepford family that would more than likely require years of therapy to erase. Three by people that had been my friends for a long time, but suddenly weren't. I didn't contact them after those incidents, though. I was too afraid to do anything like that. I just kept moving, kept running, kept somehow not dying.

But hose things that weren't human, the things I could no longer deny were something otherworldly, they just didn't stop. Salt didn't kill them, only hurt them. Nothing I had killed them. Nothing I could do stopped them permanently. Only for a little while.

So eventually, over a year after meeting God, Castiel, _WHOEVER_ , I called the number. I called dead Dean Winchester.

Voicemail.

"Hello?" I started. "My name is..." I paused. I couldn't tell him my real name. "Kai. I was told to call you by, well, this is going to sound crazy," I let out a small, nervous laugh. "God. About a year ago. If you don't believe me, look in to the reports on the KKK dismemberment, multiple anti-gay or anti-vet pastors being suddenly killed, etc. All the big random crap that happened last year, it all kind of ties to him. Even little stuff. I know, it sounds crazy, but you gotta believe me. A year ago, he gave me this number to call you. I didn't because, well, research said you were a murderer and kind of dead. But I'm calling now, because God, or Castiel, he said to tell you Castiel sent me. He told me to tell you about," I gulped. "The people that killed my family. They have black eyes. They're not human, and they keep coming after me. Salt hurts them, but..." I took a deep breath. "I'm tired. I'm scared. I need help. Please," I fought back tears. I was so tired. "Please, help me. Castiel was kind. I don't know where he is now, but he told me that you could help. Please," I took another breath. "Please help me."

I hung up, and started to cry.

"Castiel," I whimpered, fighting to make my voice solid through the tears. "Please. I need help. I need someone to help me know what to do. I'm barely surviving as it is," I shuddered, feeling more tears flow from me. "And I don't know how much longer I can do this. I don't want to die. I don't want to live scared forever.

"Please, Castiel," I prayed. "Please help me."

It started to rain, and I sank to the ground. Another alley, a new town, no sleeping bag (but thank whoever I was supposed to thank now, I still had my damn backpack) and no good place to sleep besides on concrete. I was cold. I was terrified. I was alone.

I couldn't rely on someone helping me, couldn't bank on the thought that someone _COULD_ help me, much less would.

Not anymore.

I took a deep breath, stopping my tears. "I am all alone." I muttered, forcing strength in my voice. I stood up, and said the words again, stronger and louder. "I am all alone."

"And I can do this."


	3. The Call

I got a call seven (or was it eight? Ten?) months since everyone went kind of sluggish, then suddenly woke back up. It was 2:31 at night, and my ringtone went off loudly.

I answered it blindly, not looking at the number. I should've been awake. I shouldn't have been asleep. I'd already been attacked in my sleep I don't remember how many times, and had barely made it out of the last one. I could still feel the scars that they would become. The only reason I was alive was because I'd set up a salt trap nearby. The screaming from the things had woken me up.

"Hello?" I asked, forcing myself to alertness. I took a sip from my energy drink.

"Kai?" A semi-familiar voice asked in response.

"Who is this?" I took another sip.

"My name is Dean Winchester."

I spit out the drink, and stood, looking around.

"You're lying." I accused. "Dean Winchester is dead. I saw the coroner's report."

"All of them?"

"Yes." There had been multiple, from different dates.

"Then you should know that I don't die easy." He responded. I thought about it for a minute.

"Fair enough." I conceded.

"You said Cas told you to call?" He asked.

"You mean Castiel?" I asked. He affirmed the question. "Yeah, a year ago."

"Have you seen him recently?"

"No. Can you help me?"

"Where are you now?" He asked.

"I'm in Chicago." I answered. "Downtown side."

"The things with black eyes, have they attacked you more?"

"Yeah."

"And you figured out about the salt?"

"Yeah. Why does it work?"

"They're demons." He answered. I laughed.

"You're kidding." I said. "You are a fucking dick who is absolutely kidding."

"You said God told you to call me." He pointed out. I didn't respond, so he kept going. "Does the phone you have accept pictures?"

"Yes." I said, still wrapping my head around the 'demons are real' thing.

"Good. I'm going to send you pictures of a few things you can do. There's a small shack nearby a warehouse in downtown Chicago, I'll send you the address. Find it and go there. Draw the symbol in front of the doors, and salt the fronts of the doors and the windowsills thickly. Me and my brother Sam will be there in two days."

"You're going to help me?" I asked, surprised. I could almost feel Dean being taken aback.

"Why wouldn't we?" He asked, masking his surprise in a far more superior manner than I had.

"Because I called you months ago." I answered. "I thought you really were dead, and that I was on my own. Why now? Why call me out of the blue, now?"

"Do you believe me when I say that there are supernatural beings?" He asked. I didn't even pause to answer yes. I'd seen them with my own eyes, now, the demons. Seeing is believing, and at this point in the game I was more than willing to believe in the impossible. "Then believe me when I say that when you called, I couldn't answer because I was literally not in this world. I'm sorry we couldn't help you sooner."

"We'll be there in two days. Get to the address I sent you. Draw the symbols with something that won't fade away easily. Line the doors and windowsills with salt. We'll be there in two days."

He repeated that time frame, and it was like a lifeline. Someone could help me.

"Thank you." I said.

The line disconnected after that, and I stared at my phone, waiting. It buzzed, and I got two messages. An address, and a picture.

"This looks like devil worship." I muttered, examining the symbol. There was a paint store a few blocks away. I could snag some from there, and an Italian restaurant about a mile in the direction of the warehouse kept a shit ton of salt in the back, never locked their doors. The only question was how I would get everything there. I wasn't the crazy kind of homeless with a shopping cart and a "The End Is Nigh" cardboard sign, after all.

But I was the scrappy kind of homeless that knew how to hot wire a car.

And I was pretty certain I could find a car at what was now 2:37 a.m. that nobody was using.


	4. Hellhounds Are Hell's Literal Bitches

Four hours and one mom van (that I did, in fact, leave in a place where it would easily be found) later, I was there and prepared. I mixed salt in to the paint before doing the symbols, and threw some on it as it was drying for good measure. All doors and windows were lined heavily with salt, as well as the perimeter as a whole. I wasn't gonna fuck around with this. Once the door opened, a bucket of salt would tip over on the entering person as well.

I seriously wasn't going to fuck around.

And so I waited. I'd brought actual food with me, or at least semi-actual food. Enough to keep me decently fed for two days. The Italian restaurant was a good place, but they really did need to lock their doors if they didn't want thieves (or desperate young adults) to nab a few gallons of water and some sort of food. Bread, mostly. Bread would keep for a while longer than meat, although I had grabbed one or two pre-made chicken meals (freshly cooked that day, my ass) that served as a nice dinner for my hungry self.

I didn't sleep, though. Not for two days. I was afraid of every sound I heard. Every creak was a demon trying to sneak up on me. Every voice was a cop that was going to bust me and kill me. Every car was a death sentence, waiting to crash through the wooden walls. I kept my salt bombs and pocketknives nearby, and carried one of both when I went to use the restroom in a broken toilet that probably didn't actually work anymore.

I didn't complain. Not once.

I had a roof over my head, walls around me, food, a bathroom, and people that were coming to help me. People that believed me and knew what the shit was going on and would HELP.

I was going to be helped.

Two days passed by and night fell once more. No Dean Winchester. No cavalry. No Castiel. No help.

I looked at my phone, the one I'd used to call him. I didn't know whether to call or pray it would ring on it's own. It hadn't over the past two days.

What if they changed their minds?

What if they were dead, all because I'd asked them for help?

What if they'd simply forgotten about me?

I sat there, in the dark, terrified and tired and torn between calling and waiting.

Then I heard it. A noise that chilled me to the very bone.

Howling.

Terrible, awful howling, maybe a half mile away.

That was when I picked up the phone and called Dean, my fingers somehow not screwing up the number. This time, he picked up on the first ring. "Kai?" He asked.

"Dean, where are you?" I asked him.

"We're maybe ten minutes away. Why?"

"I hear some sort of animal." I whispered. The howling sounded again, louder and closer. "Like a wolf or something, but it sounds wrong."

I heard Dean swear on his end. "How far off?" He asked. Another howl rang out, closer again and joined by more.

"Not that far." I whispered. "And there's more than one."

"Did you salt the doors and windowsills like I said?" He asked. I nodded before I realized he couldn't hear a nod.

"And the entire interior perimeter." I answered. "Dean, what's happening?"

"You're going to be fine, just stay inside the salt. We'll be there soon." I could sense he was about to end the call.

"Don't hang up." I said quickly. I could feel a pause on his end. "Please, don't hang up. I don't know what's going on, and if you won't tell me then please, just stay on the line with me until you get here."

He was deliberating. I hoped he would stay. I just needed someone to keep talking with me, so I wouldn't be alone.

"OK." He said. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "I'm going to hand you off to my brother, Sam, so I can get some things prepared while he's driving. Are you alright with that?"

"OK." I agreed. I heard a small exchange of words before a new voice was on the phone. This one was younger, almost lighter-sounding.

"Hi!" He was forcing calm and brightness in to his voice. "I'm Sam. What's your name?"

"Kai."

"No last name?" He asked. I heard those howls again, maybe two hundred feet out.

"No." I responded after a few moments of waiting. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Sam asked.

"The howling." I answered.

"No." He said after a minute. "Not yet. Don't focus on that right now, we're maybe five minutes away." I heard Dean say something I couldn't understand. "We're less than five minutes away." Sam said to me confidently. "Tell me more about yourself. How old are you?"

"18." I replied honestly. Most times I tell people two or three years older, but I was too terrified to fall in to my normal lies. "I'll be 19 in three months."

"That's really awesome. Anything you want for your birthday?"

"Food." Another howling set. Maybe 75 feet. Probably less. "They're closer. Almost here."

I heard the sound of tires screeching as lights flooded the front door.

"So are we." Sam answered. I heard scratching at the walls, saw claw marks appear in the glass at the windows while the howling kept going. I looked at the phone, about to shout for Sam, and saw that the call had been ended by him.

They were terrifying. Things I couldn't see, howling and scratching and beginning to break the walls. I heard gunshots, followed by squealing. "Reload!" I heard Dean shout. More shots were fired, followed by the sounds of more wounded animals. I was thankful that we were in downtown Chicago. Cops wouldn't be here for a while. Gunshots were too common for the area.

Finally, after what felt like forever, it ended. I waited, taking a few breaths. One Mississippi, breath. Two Mississippi, breathe. Three Mississippi...

"Kai!" A voice shouted from the door. Dean's, again. I almost wept with relief.

"Kai, are you in there?!" Sam's voice that time, still from the door. I found my voice, nodding and smiling and shouting that I was there, I was alive, and that I was alive again because I was just there, and someone was here to help me.

The door opened, and two tall men came through. One taller than the other, and slightly lankier, with long-ish brown hair. The other had a short, dark haircut and a rougher face. Both were wearing very, very, very dorky looking glasses.

I didn't have anymore time to acknowledge other details, though. That was when the suspended bucket tipped and fell, coating the pair in salt. I took a huge breath in, watching as they stopped, eyes closed and faces scrunched.

"I'm... I'm..." I stopped, registering that they weren't in pain, not at all. They were just annoyed. Mildly confused. "You're not demons." I said. I hadn't even thought about that possibility.

"No, we're not." Sam said, taking a deep breath and wiping salt off his face. Dean did the same, and the pair shook it all off as best as they could. "Nice job on the trap, though. Where did you get this much salt?"

"There was an Italian place that didn't lock their kitchen doors." I answered. "Want some bread?"

"So, you stole." Dean stated, almost as if asking for clarification.

"I didn't have much of a choice." I answered.

"I'm not judging," Dean said, sensing the defenses in my voice. "Just curious. How did you get it all here?"

"There was a mom van." I told him. "I left it where the police could find it!"

"That's probably how the hounds got your scent, too." Dean muttered. "But you hot wired a car, stole food and salt, and drove it all the way here? I'm impressed."

"Dean!" Sam muttered, looking at him pointedly. "Don't encourage her!"

"What?" He asked. "She's resourceful! I like her!"

"What were those things?" I asked, interrupting the two now-obvious brothers. Both of them thought for a minute before Sam answered.

"Those were hellhounds." He said. "They're determined to kill whatever they have the scent of, so we had to kill them first."

"Are they all dead?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"How did you see them?"

"With these," Dean tapped the glasses he wore before taking them off. Sam did the same. "Dipped in holy fire. Can see hellhounds no problem."

"And you guys..." I took a deep breath. "You just... You..." I needed a minute to process this. "You hunt hellhounds. And kill hellhounds. And demons are real and God is real and that probably means Hell is real too and ghosts and oh God I'm going to hell for stealing." I stood for a few minutes, frozen. Everything was hitting me all at once. I hadn't slept since Dean had called me, and hadn't gotten more than four-ish hours of sleep at a time in a long while. I'd been starving, roofless, cold and scared and it all just hit me in one wave.

Demons were real.

Sleep deprivation was a thing.

Hellhounds were real.

This was the first roof over my head that I had been allowed to sleep in in years.

You could see hellhounds with nerdy glasses, and kill them with what sounded like shotguns.

People were here to help me.

My thoughts were swirling. I barely heard Dean and Sam talking to each other for a minute. Finally, one of them snapped me out of my reverie. Dean. They were both much closer to me, startling me for a minute. "Hey, easy there tiger," he said, trying to calm me. "Why don't you come with us back to the Bunker?"

"Bunker?" I asked.

"It's a safe house. Pretty far away, but it's one of the safest places on the planet." Sam answered.

"You're going to take me somewhere... Far away... In your car?" I asked for clarification. "Really?"

Dean and Sam shook their heads, realizing how it sounded all of the sudden. "That is NOT what we meant." Sam said.

"Is there any way that you can teach me here, in Chicago?" I asked. "Like with the weirdo symbol on the floor, or why salt works, or if there's anything a little more deadly I can use. Or how demons and hellhounds are real and why in the hell they're hunting me."

"We don't know why they want you." Dean said after a few moments. "You say they killed your family, right? Maybe they don't like people getting away."

"But why MY family?" I pointed out.

"We don't know. Contract, probably." Sam offered. That just left me more confused, and I could even see Sam and Dean unsure about that one. They'd killed my family years ago. Why me now? Why them, then?

There were a lot of why's, right now.

"How do I defend myself better?" I decided to move on to questions they could answer. "Why do the salt and the symbol and the shotguns and the glasses work?"

Why did God give me your phone number?

That was the one I had wanted to ask the most. Why me in particular, and why them in particular. I mean, obviously they knew their shit, bu the they KNEW his name, knew Castiel. They'd asked if I'd seen him. So where was he, how did he know them.

I had enough questions to give a congressman problems and an unknown amount of time to get them answered.

"We'll tell you if you come with us." Dean replied. "There's a safe house in California, on the harbor. We'll explain it all on the way."

"No." I argued. I couldn't believe I was arguing with the guys who saved my life, but I couldn't help it, either. Strange men definitely twice my age, telling me to get in a car with them during the middle of the night.

"Why not?"

"Because I've made it this long on my own without you two, and no offense, but I'm not going to get dependent now. So tell me what I need to know, and I'll be out of your hair." I decided.

"Where will you go?" Sam asked. I thought about that one for a minute.

"Somewhere." I answered defensively. "Haven't been to Nevada yet. I mean, it's mostly desert, but nobody will look for me there."

"Kai, we know you're homeless." Dean said blatantly. I shrugged.

"So?"

"Don't you want a place to stay?" He asked. "Somewhere with safety and knowledge and options?"

Yeah.

Yeah, I did. Badly.

But not as a place to run and hide. I needed a place I could make a home, not a place where I could be stashed to the side until they know what to do.

I've already spent a good part of my life learning to survive. I couldn't just stop doing that at anything that terrifies me.

"Not as a hiding place." I answered, keeping my head high. "Not as somewhere that I can run away from my problems."

Dean let out a small sigh. "Fine." He said. "We'll teach you, under one condition."

"Two conditions." Sam piped up. I waited, nodding for them to continue. "You allow us to put you in a motel while we teach you, including a few meals." I was about to make a comment when he put up his hands. "Call it an early birthday present."

"Alright." I said. I didn't like the dependency thing at all, I really didn't. Like, I hate handouts. I hate welfare. I hate people giving me things. I have no problem with the idea, I help out those around me as much as I can, but I hate it for myself. I've lived homeless and middle class. I hated pity. I hated people feeling obligated.

I knew that was probably the same situation for the training, but it was still different to me. I had asked them for help on that. I would go out on my own and help others with the knowledge.

Like job training.

"What's the second one?" I asked.

"You keep that phone." Dean said. "And call us. Keep that phone, keep the address for the safe house, and call us if something comes up. Don't be afraid to."

"Alright." I conceded. Training in exchange for knowledge, with a bit of pity that I would have to stomach.

"Alright." Dean and Sam said.

"What motel am I meeting you guys at?" I asked. They looked at me, stunned. "What? I'm still not getting in a car with strangers."

"The nearest motel is 20 minutes away, by car." Sam pointed out.

"Ok. See you in thirty, then." I grabbed my backpack, and slung it over my shoulder as I walked past them. The car was nice. Very nice. The 1967 black Chevy Impala had been my littlest brother's favorite car.

Art talked for hours about cars.

He would've loved the opportunity to ride in one.

"Nice car." I commented as the brothers joined me. I could still smell the salt on them. "Chevy '67 Impala. Almost belongs in a museum."

"You know cars?" Dean asked.

"No." I answered, moving to open the back passenger door. I threw my backpack in first before I hopped in, settling down in the seat and taking a second to pray I was doing the right thing.

Thank you, Castiel. I thought. Thank you for sending me people who could save me.

I hope you're still alright, wherever you are.

Dean and Sam took the driver's and shotgun seats, respectively. Neither said a word about my change of heart. They just put the car in gear and left the warehouse in the dust. I took a second to look back at my temporary home. Two days with a roof and bathroom and food was longer than normal. Most places only allowed you for a day, or only did food and had you find your own place. Areas that let you stay for longer, I tended to avoid. The people in those areas were ones who needed it, people who had families or couldn't make it on their own. Even then, those areas only lasted for a week, tops.

If I'd gone to any of those in the beginning, I would've been a system kid. That wasn't what I wanted to be.

Those two days in that shack, that had been the longest I'd had an actual roof and four walls in a long time, and I was about to stay in a hotel for the first time in a long, long time.

Did it really take me being attacked by demons and hellhounds (still wrapping my head around that bit) to achieve a small part of safety?

Apparently so.


	5. Three Years Without A Good Shower

When we got to the motel, I waited quietly behind the men as they got a room for a few days, under Pat Skynyrd. I cocked an eyebrow at them when the counter guy wasn't looking. But they got two rooms, one for me and one for them, so I didn't complain. I didn't ask where they'd got the credit card, too. Not yet.

But finally, at almost one o'clock in the morning, We all stood outside the rooms we had, across the hall from each other, staring at each other awkwardly. "You didn't have to do this." I said, blurting the first thing I could think of. "Not that I'm not grateful," backtrack, girl. BACKTRACK. "I am, I really am, but you don't have to. Motels are expensive and you're already doing enough by showing me how to survive and not die and the saving me from the hellhounds and demons and you really don't need to do more than that." I stopped myself quickly, realizing I could've gone on for an eternity from awkwardness.

God, I was a mess.

"Hey," Sam said, moving to put a comforting arm on my shoulder. I flinched, and saw both of the boys register the movement as Sam pulled his hand away. His movement was slow enough so anyone would just assume it was nothing, but to me it was the biggest neon sign in the world that he didn't know what to do with me, that neither of them did. "It'll be ok. We'll protect you."

"But it can't be a forever thing." I pointed out. "I've got to be able to do this on my own, as well. I have to be able to know how to survive without having my hand held."

Neither brother spoke for a few minutes. Finally Dean just nodded. "You're right. Independence is important. So get some shut-eye right now, and we'll start your training after breakfast say, around nine-ish?" I noticed the slight surprise on Sam's face, but didn't comment.

"Nine. Sounds good." I agreed. "Thanks."

We all just stood there for a few seconds, awkward and unsure, before I finally turned around to open the door to my room. I stood there in the doorway for longer than I was proud of, just gawking at the area in all honesty. Bed. TV. Fridge. Personal bathroom that had a shower. Closet. Things I hadn't had separately, much less all together, in a while.

"How long has it been," Dean asked to my back. "Since you've had a decent place to stay?"

I walked in to the room quietly and shut the door behind me, taking a little bit just to breathe and take it all in. I was too afraid to answer him, too afraid of the pitying look that would follow.

"Almost three years." I whispered, sinking to the floor. I wanted to cry again, so badly. Cry out of thanks, out of fear, out of stress and worry and anger and relief and a whole jumbled mess of emotions I couldn't identify without hours of time.

"Thank you, Castiel." I whispered, remembering the nickname that the brothers had called him. Cas. They had called him Cas, like he had been a friend.

I considered calling him that for a minute, considered addressing him as a friend that had helped me and saved me. A friend that had fed me and listened to me talk.

I dismissed the notion quickly. Castiel was still God. I shouldn't even be calling him Castiel.

But why did I, then?

I didn't have an answer to that question. Hell, I was talking to my damn self in my head! "Probably a sign of some sort of psychosis." I muttered. "Lack of sleep and whatnot."

So I went, and I took a shower. I let the water cascade over me as surrogate tears, giving me the opportunity to wash properly with luxuries I hadn't been able to afford or enjoy in so long. Soap. Shampoo. Conditioner. Hot water. More soap.

I tried so hard to wash away the grime and filth and dirt and demon that seemed to cling to me, and later did the same to my clothes with hand soap. I knew it was impossible really, but the motions were soothing, like I was able to wash away my incompetence and lack of knowledge. And after I was done, they weren't even looking half-bad. Somewhat clean and finally, FINALLY, not smelling like sweat and blood and smoke and back alleys dirtied with things I didn't even want to know about.

I think it was then that I realized how much I missed laundry day from home, the day I used to hate. Laundry day and bribing my brothers to bathe or shower and being CLEAN.

I missed it so much.


	6. Sam's POV

**OK, so, I will switch POVs occasionally, but I'll also make sure you see it in the Chapters or something.**

 **I still don't own Supernatural, or Sam or Dean. I only own Kai.**

 **XxXxXxXxXx**

 **Sam POV**

Dean and I disappeared in to our room after Kai did, and went through our normal routines. Do not disturb sign on door. Guns checked and cleaned. Normally we would put Case info up, but for this we had none. We didn't even have a name or picture of the girl. All we knew was that her family had been killed and that she was homeless.

Neither of us really knew what to say. Even when we'd been growing up, we'd had the Impala and each other. We'd had knowledge and guns and clothes and places to stay, and Dean always made sure we had food.

That girl, Kai, she had nothing right now. No family. No car. No knowledge. No guns or clothes.

"She asked for food for her birthday." I finally said. Dean turned and looked at me, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"When I talked to her on the phone," I clarified. "She told me she was 18, going to be 19 in three months. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She said food." I took a second to shake my head. "Didn't even hesitate."

"So?" Dean asked. I stared at him in shock.

"She should be in her senior year of high school, Dean." I pointed out. "If not her freshman year of college."

"Yeah, well, she's not."

"She deserves to be!"

"Do you know if she even wants to?" Dean pointed out. "You're trying to make me see her as you, when she's not. She's just a scared girl that somehow got twisted up in a mess."

"And how is she in this, anyways?" Sam asked. "Demon deal?"

"Maybe, but from what end?" Dean asked. "Did someone put a hit out on her family or did she make a deal or was it just bad luck?"

"And how has she survived this long with demons after her?" I continued. "Why did Cas give her our number?"

"Well, why don't we ask him?" Dean pointed out before settling down on the couch. "Oh wait, because he's not answering."

"Well, it's worth a try anyways." I argued. Dean took a breath, staring at me.

"Well, I'm not gonna make the call." He said. I threw my hands in the air.

"Fine." I spat out, sitting on the edge of my bed. I clasped my hands together in what could easily be construed as a mockery of a prayer pose. "Dear Castiel, we got a girl hear that knows your name, goes by Kai. Said that you gave her our phone number while you were jacked full of God power.

"Not that I'm complaining, the girl obviously needs help, but maybe if you could answer any questions for us that would help us." We both looked around, waiting.

"See?" Dean asked me. "He's AWOL, Sam. And he dumped this girl on us way back when for reasons we'll probably never understand."

"She would be dead right now if it weren't for us!" I pointed out.

"She would've been fine if Cas had fixed up whatever when he was all Godly and shit!"

"How come he never told us about her?" I asked. "Before Dick, or before you two went to Purgatory?"

"Man, I got no friggin clue." Dean responded. "All I know is that we got a girl here who is homeless and hunted, a girl who needs help. So we're gonna help her, and then since she doesn't want us sticking around we'll scram."

I didn't say anything, just stared at my brother for a while, thinking. "What?" He asked. "I got more salt in my hair? That's gonna take forever and a day to wash all out."

"But it was a good plan." I pointed out. Dean laughed at that one.

"Yeah, and the salt in the Devil's trap paint? The salt around the perimeter?" He whistled. "Any demon that came at her there was gonna have to go through hell to get to her, and painful hell, too."

"That still doesn't answer why they're coming after her, though." I said. "Not a lot of this really makes sense."

"No, it doesn't." Dean agreed. "Now out with it, why were you staring at me?"

"You didn't try to complete the first trial."

"Yeah, I said I wouldn't." Dean answered. "You didn't believe me?"

"No, I did." I told him. "I just liked seeing the confirmation."

"Yeah, well, cut the chick flick moments." Dean said gruffly. "I need to shower this stuff off of me and my clothes, and then I'm going to catch some shut eye with the magic fingers."

"Don't hog all the hot water!" I shouted as my brother disappeared in to the bathroom. All I got was a grunt for a reply and the sound of hot water running.

I shook my head, turning to the desk where my laptop sat. Research was never a bad idea.

I sat down at the desk and booted up the device, hooking in to the wifi quickly. "Demonic Hunts." I muttered, typing the words in to a search engine. That would be a good start.


	7. Kai POV and Breakfast

I didn't sleep again that night. I sat and waited for my clothes to dry while wrapped up in a fluffy towel, and thought. Thought and waited for another attack, another hellhound howl or demon demanding my death or who knows, a vampire or werewolf or fucking GHOST coming for me, because if demons and hellhounds are real then why wouldn't everything else be real too?

But dawn came, uneventful and bright and simple and so full of promise I felt relieved.

I was going to start taking control of my life again. I really was.

So I got dressed, my clothes long since being dried. The feeling of clean clothes was nice, something I hadn't had in a while.

I got dressed, and I did my best to brush my hair with my fingers, followed by blowing it dry and doing the finger brush thing again. Once I was satisfied with my hair, I did my best to brush my teeth. I had no toothpaste, but I had water and a now-clean finger. It wasn't the first time I'd tried the finger-brushing technique and done the best I could.

I looked at the sign by the sink from the hotel. It said that if I'd forgotten any amenity items, I could get them free of charge at the front desk.

Free was free.

Five minutes and a simple lie later I had an actual hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, and even deodorant (thank whoever). I was able to actually clean up a little bit more, brush my hair better and clean my teeth properly and wear deodorant.

God, I'd missed deodorant.

After I was finally as clean as a homeless girl in a motel was going to get, I put everything away in my small red backpack I'd managed to keep with me that was emblazoned with the Canadian flag.

Go USA.

I had plenty of space in the bag. The only things in it were some salt bombs, a water bottle, and my wallet. I'd had that wallet for forever. Just because I had no money didn't mean I wasn't going to keep it, and my driver's license, on me. I had stopped going by my name almost three weeks after my family died, and my driver's license was the last thing I had left with my real name on it. Those little things were what I wanted to hold on to. They were all I had left.

I took out a picture of my family in there, the one I kept behind my license. It was the only picture I had from way back when. Art was maybe five, and Josiah eight. I was ten. Mom and dad were happy and smiling on either side behind us.

I put it away quickly upon hearing a knock at my door. "One second!" I called out. Once the picture was in my wallet, and my wallet stored safely in my pocket, I went to open the door. Dean and Sam were standing in the hallway, freshly showered as well and in different clothes than yesterday. I saw them notice my lack of other things to wear. It's a hard expression to miss. Neither of them said anything, though.

"You ready to go?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, just let me grab my bag." I said. Dean nodded, and I quickly turned to grab my Canada backpack.

Rule number one of being homeless. When you go, the pack goes with you, no exceptions.

I threw my keycard in my wallet after the door closed behind me. "Where are we going for breakfast?"

"Where do you want to go?" Sam asked.

"I..." I thought about that for a moment. "There's a good soup kitchen down on West Le Moyne. They're open till five." I offered.

"No." Dean said, shaking his head. I noticed a look of surprise cross Sam's face. "You're with us, for now. Until you want to leave, you're with us, which means you're not homeless, got it?" The way he said it, he sounded so stern. His voice was solid, like an immovable wall that would rather crush you than bend to you.

"Got it." I said, pretending that I wasn't slightly terrified. I'd broken in to most restaurants, but had never actually been in one for a reason other than stealing food for a while. "I don't know where to go for food, then. All I know is where the good dumpsters are, decent soup kitchens, and which restaurants leave their back doors unlocked or have super unobservant staff."

Dean and Sam shared a look, and I could feel a bit of the judgement. "I think I saw a pancake place on our way here last night." Dean offered, the duo turning back to me. "Sound good?"

I nodded, and Dean clapped his hands together with a smile. "Great! Let's go!"

None of us spoke really on the drive there. I don't think they knew what to say. They knew I had all my belongings in my bag. They knew I was homeless. They knew I didn't know a couple things they did. And then there were so many things they didn't know that they were probably wondering.

So I just sat there quietly, enjoying the classic rock Dean had playing through the speakers. I would eventually just smash the awkward to pieces.

But I also just wanted to sit and enjoy the silence. The second I broke it and told them to go at it, they would, and I didn't like revealing information.

So I enjoyed the smell of beer and burgers and car that was their car, and hummed along quietly with the radio.

Once we got to the breakfast place, though, I immediately felt out of place. This was a restaurant for people with jobs and friends and families and money and a house and a car, not for a homeless girl with demons on her ass. The last time I'd been here, I'd been begging for scraps.

And I might've snatched about 10 dollars off of the hostess.

"Please don't be the same lady. Please don't be the same lady." I whispered quietly as we walked in.

"YOU." A distinctly southern women's voice said automatically.

"Shit." I muttered, looking at the speaker. About three years older than me, perky blonde hair, and definitely too tight uniform.

Yep. Same lady.

"If you don't get out RIGHT NOW you vermin, I will call the police on you." She threatened, causing a few nearby customers to turn and look as well.

"Kai, what's going on?" Sam asked.

"What's going on, sir," the hostess interjected. I took a second to look at her name tag. Betty. More like Bitchy, if you ask me. "Is that THAT thing you have beside you is a sinning thief! She stole money off of me and ran off, probably to buy drugs or some other sort of illegal paraphernalia, and now she's come back for more! Probably already robbed you two blind, too!" She added a little "humph" to the end as she crossed her arms.

I was right. Bitchy fit her better.

"Hey, hey," Dean said, raising his hands and walking just a little closer. "You've got the wrong girl. That little squirt there?" He jerked a thumb at me and laughed. "That's my punk niece. She's been traveling with me and my brother, Sam, on a kind of college road trip thing," he waved his hands in a circle for emphasis. "For the past week and a half."

"That cretin stole from me a month ago!" She argued.

"Really?" Sam asked, stepping. "Because I could've sworn a month ago I was helping her study at home for the SAT."

"Doesn't mean she couldn't have done both!" She pointed out, belligerent and still very bitchy.

"Ma'am," Dean and Sam reached in to their wallets, pulling out IDs for both of them. "We live in California."

"Where's her ID, then?" She asked, pointing to me. "I see a wallet in her pocket!"

I took a deep breath, freezing. Dean and Sam turned to me too, and I could feel them waiting.

I started to cry.

"I don't have one!" I wailed the lie out like it was a dirty secret, really letting the tears flow. "I'm sorry Uncle Sammy!" I said, running to hug him. He accepted it with surprise, standing stiff and unsure of what to do. "I know you said I could do it, but I couldn't! I couldn't go in and get my license! I'm just too afraid to drive again after what happened last time, and I'm trying and trying and trying but I don't wanna wreck and loose you guys like I lost mom and dad!" I kept the tears going, full force, while crying I'm sorry over and over again. At this point, Sam had taken a hint and put his arms around my back, making awkward attempts at soothing back pats.

"You see what you've done?" Dean asked the hostess. I could feel the anger in his voice. "She's been trying hard, but it's a difficult thing to get over. She lost everything a few months ago in that crash, and we almost lost her, but now you've got to go and make my niece cry because she looks like some homeless girl that nicked a few bucks to probably buy cheaper food!"

"I am SO SORRY." She said, grabbing a few menus. "Let me get you guys seated," Dean held up a hand to interrupt her as a manager walked up.

"What seems to be the problem here, sir?" The man asked. I was still pulling on the tears, but I had now pulled away from Sam, turning to watch Dean's performance instead.

"I'll tell you what the problem is!" Dean said, outraged. "Your employee here just cause my niece to cry, and accused her of theft! She has been blatantly disrespectful and rude and, quite frankly, I think I'd like to take my business elsewhere." Dean turned to us, now, and walked towards us. "Come on, honey, we'll go somewhere else. It's OK to not want to drive yet."

"Wait!" The manager shouted. I saw a glint of something mischievous in Dean's eyes before he turned back around. "Please, we are so sorry. Enjoy a breakfast on us!" He glared at the hostess, who was clutching her notepad as tightly as she could. "I'm sure Betty here won't mind compensating you guys for it."

"I want her to apologize to my niece." Dean said determinedly, glaring at Betty as well. I looked away, trying to hard to cover a laugh as a sob as I heard Betty walk closer.

"I am so sorry, hun." She muttered, patting me on the back. "I truly did not mean to accuse you of such awful things. I'm certain your parents are watching you from heaven, proud that you're trying your best to go to college and make it all work."

I moved forwards quickly to hug her. "Thank you, ma'am." I said quietly, making the hug tight enough for nobody to notice me nicking the 20 from her back pocket. I palmed it quickly when I pulled away, and shoved my hands in my pockets as awkwardness. "I guess we're all trying our best."

Bitchy looked back at her boss, who was still glaring at her. "Seat them." He ordered. She nodded, and moved back to her little tables to grab some menus.

"Booth or table?" She asked, sounding nervous. Dean told her booth, and we were seated quickly. I sat next to Dean, and across from Sam. We told her our drink orders quickly (two coffees, black, and a water), and she couldn't wait to scurry away.

Once she was out of earshot, I wiped my face and killed the tears. "In my defense," I started to murmur. "She really was a bitch the first time I saw her, and she still is now."

"Kid, I don't care." Dean said, turning towards me. "You were a damn genius, UP TOP!" He held up a hand for a high five, and I gladly accepted. It was funny, Sam was essentially giving him the bad parent look. "What? She played a group of people and helped get us free food."

"Excellent acting on the part of you boys as well." I added. Sam looked just absolutely done, and instead of answering he just took his menu and used it as a blockade between himself and Dean and I.

I smirked, nudging Dean slightly. When he looked over at me, I held up two fingers, with a folded 20 between them. He fought back a laugh, motioning for me to hide the cash quickly.

"If that waitress kicks us out I blame both of you." Sam muttered. I smiled, and realized that I was actually enjoying myself.

"Consider it my way of paying for my part of the food." I replied. Sam tilted his menu toward us to glare at me.

"You're not paying." He stated calmly. Dean nodded beside me.

"Why not?"

"Because the meal is still free, and because we're trying to be nice to you." Dean replied. Sam smiled, putting his menu back up to examine it once more. "Now pick something out, kid." Dean commanded, lifting his own menu. He glanced at the front specials. "I'm gonna have the breakfast burger special."

I took a glance at that myself. Sausage, eggs, cheese, bacon, grits, and more cheese in between two pancakes for buns. Hash browns on the side, surprisingly.

"You are going to literally eat cholesterol and a heart attack." I pointed out. I could hear Sam's small smirk as Dean shook his head.

"If it's free, it doesn't count." He replied, looking over at the hostess, who was now our waitress for the duration of our meal. She set the coffees down in front of the men, and handed me my water almost as if it were a bomb.

"Are ya'll ready to order?" She asked. Sam and Dean looked at me expectantly, and I skimmed over the menu real quick.

Hell, food is food. Why not go for it?

"Yes, ma'am!" I chirped sweetly. "Can I get a chocolate chip waffle please with hash browns, white toast, and sausage?"

"Whatever you want, sugar." She replied, keeping a smile plastered to her face as she took my menu. Dean ordered his breakfast burger, and Sam a salad.

"Can I ask questions?" I asked after a moment. "Right now, about... Stuff?" I wasn't quite certain how to describe it.

"Lets keep it off of demons and hellhounds for now, while we're in public." Sam advised. I nodded. That made sense.

"Can I ask other questions?" I asked.

"Sure, I guess." Dean agreed. "Whatcha got for us?"

"What are you guys?"

"We're hunters." Dean answered.

"And Men of Letters." Sam chimed in.

"What are hunters and Men of Letters?" I continued. Each brother answered that question, along with many others, in turn. What monsters are real. What ones aren't. How many other hunters were out there? Men of Letters? What was life like? Was this all they did?

"How did you two get in to hunting?" I finally asked. By this time our food had come and both the men had been startled by how quickly I'd wolfed down mine, and from there went to pick languidly at some fries the waitress had brought as "complementary."

Neither brother answered that for a moment, and I felt an unspoken agreement pass between the two.

"Our mom died when we were young," Sam started. I felt that sentence hit like a punch to the gut. "And our dad kind of just took to it, brought us with him almost everywhere trying to get his own kind of revenge, and save others."

"I'm pretty certain Sammy here knew how to unload and reload a pistol before he knew his ABC's!" Dean said with a laugh.

"Did either of you guys, you know, go to school?" I asked that one without looking at them. I hadn't been able to even start my senior year of high school. I wondered if they'd gotten to, either.

"Dad taught us most stuff on the road." Dean explained. "We went to different schools sometimes, though, and Sammy here went off to college at Stanford!" Sam shot hit a rueful smile before looking at me.

"I wanted to be a lawyer." He explained.

"Criminal, civil, environmental," I looked back up at Sam, feeling as though I was in an area I understood better. "What type of lawyer?"

"I, um..." Sam looked surprised by my question. "I hadn't decided yet."

"My dad was a divorce lawyer." I admitted. "He used to tell me that seeing other people's relationship mistakes were the only way he kept Mom, until he didn't and she changed." I focused on the fries for a while, unsure of how to continue.

"What about God?" I finally asked. Dean and Sam took another few seconds to consider that.

"What did God look like?" Dean asked first. I described his appearance. Taller than me, short dark hair, tan overcoat, crooked tie, looked a bit like an accountant in all honesty. Sam nodded at Dean in confirmation before Dean continued.

"That was Castiel." He explained. "An angel of the Lord."

"Angels are real?" I asked. Both hunters nodded. "Why was he God, then?"

"A lot of different reasons that aren't going to be easy to explain." Dean answered curtly. "Not without a lot more time."

"Oh." I said, understanding the meaning. That info was on a need to know basis that I wasn't on quite yet. "Is Go - Castiel," I corrected. "Is he OK?"

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"I was worried for him." I explained. "When I saw him, he wasn't looking very good. He'd been so kind to me, and I wasn't certain as to what to do. I've been hoping that he was ok."

"Cas is fine, don't worry." Sam assured me.

"Can I see him?" I requested. "I just wanted to tell him thank you, in person. I've been praying to him telling him thanks, telling him I hope he's OK, but he hasn't ever answered back since the first time to let me know that he is OK. I'm just... Worried, I guess." I admitted. "Worried about an angel being OK must sound pretty stupid."

"Nah," Dean replied. "He need someone to worry about him, with all the crap he does."

I heard a sharp kicking sound come from under the table, and caught the glare Dean shot at Sam.

"Was he always God?" I asked.

"Cas?" Sam asked. I nodded. "No."

"What was he like," I decided to ask. "Before he was God?"

"He was a bit of a dick, at first." Dean said. "But he had good morals."

"And he became less of a dick later on." Sam added. "More human."

"Then he flip-flopped between the two for a while." Dean added with a laugh, causing Sam to join in as well.

"He was a person." I muttered. An angel who was a person, like something from a B-list novel. "Cool."


	8. A Hunter Thing

We left the restaurant soon after, with me asking sporadic questions once we were in the car. Why does salt hurt demons? Why are hellhounds invisible? What's true and what's false about vampires? About werewolves? About fairies? About dragons? What else is there? Is Zeus real? Kali-Ma? Osiris? Odin? Ganesh? What religious deities don't exist? How have these things been in hiding for so long? Are they people too, or just monsters?

We were almost to the motel when I saw a little bookstore. "Stop for a second." I said, pointing at the store. They didn't ask questions, just pulled over and let me hop out for a second. It was a quick stop, in and out, and I had around 17 dollars left in my pocket, along with a large 3-subject notebook. "Sorry, I need something to write all this down on. Do either of you have a pen?"

Sam pulled one out from his inside jacket pocket, and handed it to me. I started taking notes on different things they'd said, trying to keep it in some sort of order. Vampires in this section, werewolves in that, angels and demons over there...

It was a start. The back section, I decided I would leave blank for symbols and such. Dean and Sam hadn't moved the car yet, just sat there watching me. "What?" I asked. "If I'm going to learn, I kind of want to make sure I don't forget anything."

"No, it's just..." Sam shook his head, looking unsure and concerned.

"What?"

"It's a Hunter thing," Dean explained, his voice gruff. "To keep track of info, creatures, and hunts in a notebook. Something you can use to reference if need be, or something to pass on to future Hunters."

"Then what's so funny about it?" I pressed.

"Nothing." Dean's voice held finality. It was odd. One minute they were happy, or at the very least more relaxed, and answering my questions. Now it was almost as if I was doing something wrong, from the way they held themselves.

"Tell me." I demanded. "Is it bad to be doing a Hunter thing? Am I not supposed to write down what I'm told?"

"No, no, it's not that." Dean argued.

"Then what is it?"

"It's nothing." Sam interjected, repeating his brother's word. I glared at the both of them, and they held my gaze evenly.

"Fine." I lied, turning to my new notebook. I took a minute to run my hand over the cover. It was smooth, sleek, nice, and red. No notches or crossed out scrawl, and there was no smell of drugs. It was something untouched, clean; something that hadn't been thrown out and around in society.

"It's nice." Sam muttered. I looked up to see him still watching me while Dean started the car. "Is red your favorite color?"

"Yeah." I answered quietly, glancing over at my red backpack. My wallet was even a dark red. I looked at the cover a few more times before turning to the first page.

 _Property of Kylie 'Kai' Dillinger._

I wrote the words carefully, in my nicest and neatest cursive. This was something I intended on keeping.

As an afterthought, I wrote down an "if found, please call" thing, listing my name first. A few seconds later, I wrote Dean Winchester's number under it, with the letters I.C.E. next to it. In Case of Emergency, call Dean. I considered writing "pray to Castiel" under it as well for another I.C.E., but I decided against it. What sane person would do that?

Even more, where was Castiel?

I wrote it anyways. _I.C.E: Pray to Castiel_.

Maybe he would show up again if someone else did the praying, like Dean or Sam. They knew him, after all.

Speaking of which, I skipped over to the last ten-ish pages, and starting writing at the very top. _CONTACTS._

The first number I put was my own, and the second was Dean's. "Hey Sam," I looked up, and realized that I hadn't been paying attention. We weren't headed back to the hotel. "Where are we going?" I asked quickly, sitting up straighter. I recognized a few areas, but it was different looking at them from a car versus being on the street.

"We said we would train you." Sam replied, turning to look at me. "Can't do that in the main Chicago area."

"Just head downtown." I answered. "Nobody gives a crap about weird things going on there."

"Too risky." Dean responded. "First, we're taking you to a shooting range."

"Why a shooting range?"

"You're going to need to know how to shoot a gun." Sam responded.

"Why? Do guns work on demons?"

"Not quite," Dean started.

"Do they work on vampires?"

"Not quite either," Sam started, but I cut him off.

"Werewolf silver bullet thing?"

"Yes."

"And what are the chances of me running in to a werewolf if I have demons trying to hunt me down?" I asked in response. "Do demons and werewolves team up often?"

"Not that we know." Dean answered exasperatedly. "Do you just not want to know how to shoot a gun?"

"No, I already do know how." I answered off-handedly, turning to my notebook to start writing notes. "But if all of this stuff exists, shouldn't I know what does and doesn't work? What bad guy team-ups I might have problems with?"

"I thought you only had demons after you." Sam pointed out.

"And I thought you two hunted everything." I responded. "If it's out there, I should be able to defend myself against it."

"Hold on, hold on." Dean looked over to the side for a second, and quickly pulled over in to a parking lot. I sat there, arms crossed, waiting for Dean to park. When he did, he turned around and watched me cautiously. "If you want to know how to protect yourself from demons, fine. We'll show you how to protect yourself from demons. But showing you how to be a Hunter is a whole other thing in it's entirety."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is that we're not going to teach a punk-ass little kid to be a Hunter and send her on her merry way, ready to jump at everything she sees." Dean answered.

"What the hell makes me a punk-ass kid?" I asked, starting to tense up myself. I was in an unfamiliar environment, with unfamiliar people that had all these weird rules and fine lines in place. It was almost like the time I'd accidentally stumbled in to a homeless cult. "And why not teach me what I can learn? If I can help others out there I want to."

"No." Dean answered.

"Why not?" I answered just as angrily.

"Because we're not leaving you alone to go find monsters!" Dean was almost about to shout. "Dammit, dad, you're not going to go off on your own without me! Not again!"

Nobody spoke for a little bit. I looked over at Sam, who in turn glanced at Dean. Dean's eyes went from steel to a slightly more malleable metal in a few seconds. "Kai. I meant to say Kai. You're not going to go off on your own without us, because that's dangerous." His voice was more measured, now. He was choosing his words carefully.

"I can't be dependent on the two of you." I responded just as carefully. "If I need to have a partner, then fine. Give me a partner. But I won't just sit by and do nothing while knowing that there's something I could do."

Both the brothers thought about that for a moment before Sam spoke up. "She could go watch after Kevin." Sam offered. I saw Dean's eyes light up for a second at that before they turned back to steel. "Garth has been MIA for a while, and it'd probably be good for the both of them. Plus, Garth's houseboat is as warded as it can be."

"Wait, wait, wait, WHAT houseboat?" I asked, backing up the conversation. "Who's Kevin? And who's Garth?"

"Kevin is a prophet and Garth is…." Dean's voice trailed off as he looked for the right words. "Garth." He decided. I nodded, understanding that pretty quickly.

"Ok. So Garth is going to be my partner?" I asked. Sam shook his head.

"You'll more be watching after Kevin." He answered.

"So I'm going to be a babysitter in return for your gratuitous training?" I asked. "What the hell?"

"Actually, Kevin is in a situation similar to yours." Dean pointed out. "He's got demons hunting for him, too. We've had him safe for a while in the boat."

"Kevin is being hunted by demons too?" I asked quietly. Sam and Dean nodded. I thought about this for a little bit.

"Where's the boat?" I was considering this. "California? Virginia? New York? In town somewhere?"

"Missouri."

I took a few minutes, fully sounding their plan out loud for the boys to verify.

"You want to put me on a boat." They nodded. "With a guy of unknown age."

"He's 18," Dean said hurriedly, but his expression betrayed him. I glared and he just shrugged. "I think."

"You want to put me on a boat with a guy that may be 18," I re-started, earning another round of nods. "A boat in Missouri, owned by a guy you guys haven't seen in a long time," more nods. "With a guy named Kevin that is a prophet and is also being hunted by demons?" I double checked. Nods again. I sat back in my seat, taking a few breaths.

"Drugs." I decided, nodding firmly. "I've been drugged, or I'm dead."

"You're not dead." Sam pointed out. I checked my own pulse for a minute, just to make sure. "And you don't appear to be the type to take drugs." Also true. Hadn't touched anything stronger than ibuprofen or acetaminophen since forever.

"I was afraid you were going to say that." I muttered. "If I do the houseboat thing, will you guys train me properly? Like, Hunter training?"

"Yes, but no hunts until we have demons off your ass." Dean stated. "And I don't like the idea of putting you and Kevin on a boat together." I put my hands up in resignation.

"At some point, I'd like it if you explained your angsty-ness, though." I put it out there as calmly as I could. "It makes it hard to keep track of what does and doesn't push your buttons when you do these 180's."

"What 180's?" Dean asked, appalled. I watched Sam snicker quietly, and I pointed his pen back at him.

"You're not much better." I pointed out. The brothers switched expressions, with Sam looking confused and Dean snickering quietly. "Both of you. I want the angst thing to be a part of Hunter training. How to deal with you two, and if other Hunters are like the two of you."

Neither brother answered to that. Both turned around in their seats, starting the car again. I could hear them muttering to each other, and I shook my head. They reminded me of how my own family had been.

I opened my notebook back up to the contacts pages, and realized I was missing a number. "Hey, Sam," I started.

"Yeah?"

"What's your number?" Sam rattled off 10 digits while Dean muttered something about better moves. "Thanks."

"No problem." Sam replied. We drove back the hotel, then, with me asking more questions and this time writing down answers. I stuck with demons, first. What worked and didn't work. Why certain things worked. I took out my phone at one point, and carefully traced the "Devil's Trap," as Sam called it, on to a page.

Once we got back to the hotel, though, I stopped, realizing what point we were at. This was the "go pack your stuff up" moment for most trips, and I already had everything in my backpack.

"Hey, Sam?" I stopped him as both brothers got out of the car. "How far is where we're going in Missouri from here?"

"A good seven or eight hours. Why?"

"Is it ok if I just… Wait in the car?" I asked. "While you guys grab your stuff?" I looked over at Dean, very terrified for a moment that he was going to request me to go inside and pack up my stuff too.

But then I saw something in both of them, something I hadn't expected to see. Understanding. They knew how it felt to live out of a bag, or for them a car. They knew how it was to have so little.

At some point or another, they'd been like me.

"Yeah." Dean said with a nod. "We'll check out and be back in five or so minutes. You want anything from inside?"

"No." I lied. I wanted the shampoo and the sheets and the bed and the shower and the room and the feeling of having my own personal space again.

"Ok." Sam agreed. Both of them went back in to the motel while I got back in the car, taking care to lock the doors in the process. Dean had the keys. I wouldn't be locking them out. I took a few minutes to double check the contents of my backpack, make sure everything was in order.

Then I went back to the notebook, and tore out a single page. On it I practiced drawing the Devil's Trap demon worship (demon TRAP) thing. Circle, star, squiggles here and there. Circle, star, squiggles here and there.

I jumped at a knock on the car window. I turned to look out at it, and saw a policeman looking in the window. "Miss, are you locked in this car?" He asked, his voice muffled by the glass and metal. He was blonde, maybe 27, definitely far from heavyset, and wore a pair of dark sunglasses. I shook my head quickly, deciding now was a bad time to speak to him. "Can you please show me your ID?" He asked. I thought about this for a moment. I wasn't driving. I hadn't been pulled over. I definitely looked like an 18-year-old, someone who would be fine alone in the back of a car.

I shook my head quickly, feeling instinct kick in. The cop sighed. "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to exit the vehicle."

I shook my head again, and reached in to my bag. "Ma'am," I looked back at the cop, and almost screamed.

His sunglasses were gone, now. In their place were eyes, black and every bit of my worst nightmare.

"I'm really gonna need you to get out of this car." He said, his face contorting in to an awful mockery of a smile before he threw out a single punch, breaking the car window with ease. "Right now."


	9. All Demons Were People, Once

**OK, I didn't even realize that this chapter had been posted so messed up. So Sorry to anyone who read it and... well... tried to read it.**

 **Special thanks to 95 for bringing it to my attention!**

 **I still do not own SPN or any of the characters, that's Eric Kripke and the CW's baby. However, I do own Kylie "Kai" Dillinger.**

 **And before anyone asks where I got the name, I went through about seven random name generators.**

 **xXxXxXxXxX**

I couldn't help it. I screamed, kicking away quickly while the demon kept trying to make a grab at me. I reached in to my bag, grabbing for a salt bomb to throw at it. This was new. This was terrifying. None of them had ever come after me in broad daylight. None of them had ever been dressed as a cop.

I threw the salt bomb quickly, shielding my eyes as it hit the demon square in the face. The thing howled in pain, and I scrabbled for another one. I could feel the salt get everywhere, and in the back of my mind I realized that this would be a pain in the ass for anyone to clean up later.

The demon grabbed my ankle, gripping it hard. I pulled away, and felt something painful pop in the wrong way. I screamed again, making as much noise as I could. The glass behind me broke, and I felt a second pair of hands grabbing for me. I swung up, punching the second assailant in the nose. The second person was another police officer, and I looked up to see black eyes as he split in to a smile. I spit up at his face, aiming another punch at his nose. This time there was a sickening crack as the body part broke, and demon number two howled in pain.

"HEY!" I heard a voice shout. Dean's. He shouted for Sam, and both the demons stopped to turn and face where the voices came from. I used the opportunity to bite the one closest to me on the hand while kicking out at the face of the first demon with my other foot. Both howled in pain, letting out a stream of cursing.

"KAI, GET DOWN!" Sam shouted. I complied quickly, rolling myself and my bag in to the floorboard of the car. I found a knife, unlike any I'd ever seen. It was silvery and almost a triangular shape for the blade, but short enough to be a dagger.

I grabbed it quickly, and looked up. One demon was still in front of the broken window, in a fight with Dean. The other was a short distance away facing off against Sam. Without thinking, I sat up and stabbed the closest one through where the window had been, straight through the chest. It glowed, almost, a fiery yellow that seemed to blink and fizzle, before I pulled out the knife. As I looked over at Sam, he stabbed at the other demon with a sharper blade, one that looked like a hunting knife on steroids. The demon did the glowing thing again, blinking and fizzling like an ember just barely holding on, before Sam removed the blade and the thing collapsed.

Within seconds, Dean and Sam were in the car with me, and we were leaving. I heard sirens almost three minutes later, and watched as they drove past us in the opposite direction. They were heading towards the motel.

I didn't say anything for the longest time. They asked me if I was alright, if I was hurt, but all I did was nod a little here and there. I was still in shock over what happened. After a few minutes of interrogation both of the brothers left me be to sit in the back seat, quietly freaking out over what had happened.

They were still attacking me.

They'd found me with the Winchesters, the people who said they would protect me. And they had protected me again. Protected me and saved me again.

And I had stabbed a Demon.

I had killed a demon.

And as I looked down in to my hand, I saw that I didn't bear the dagger anymore. No, now it was on the floor, bloodstained and staring at me in an almost accusatory tone. They bleed. It seemed to say. They look like humans. They talk like humans. They appear to be human.

They bleed like humans.

Eventually, it was almost noon. Dean had ditched the highway since then. Ditching the highways would add on a few more hours, not including any traffic. But eventually, we pulled over at some destitute looking wooded area without a lot of people. Another car hadn't passed us in over ten minutes.

"Alright," Dean started, putting the car in park and turning it off. "We've got to wash the blood off the side of the car and put something over the windows. Kai, are you alright?" He turned to ask me. I didn't look him in the eyes, though. I kept staring at the accusatory dagger.

I had never actually killed before.

I was starting to understand why they had been hesitant on teaching me Hunter stuff, much less letting me go out with that knowledge solo.

"One of my ankles is out of socket." I finally said. I had felt the pain the entire time, but had been steadily ignoring it.

"Which one?" Sam asked.

"Left." I answered. I knew the brothers would be nodding at each other on something.

"I'll get the ankle." I heard Dean mutter. "You grab the bags and the water."

"Sounds good." Sam replied. Both of their doors opened, and a few moments later the one to my left did as well. I flinched, still staring at the dagger.

"Alright, Kai," Dean said slowly. "I'm going to put your ankle back in place. Do you mind if I see it?"

I complied quietly, and flinched as he moved to touch the area. "Yeah, it's definitely out of socket." He said, loud enough for Sam to hear. "Alright, on the count of three, I'm going to pop it back in. You with me?" I nodded once, now sitting sideways across the back seat and looking down at my hands. They looked just as accusatory as the dagger had. "One," he started. I could feel the pause in his breath. "Two," I thought there would be another pause, but instead there was a short jab and another popping noise. I didn't make a single noise of pain this time, though. I just kept staring down at my hands.

"There we go, ankle's back in place." Dean said, sounding as falsely chipper as he could. Almost like a gruff older sibling. "Good job on taking it like a trooper. Anything else hurt?"

"Dean," I started, looking up at him. "Do demons possess people?" I knew he'd seen the dagger. It was a hard thing to miss. He'd seen me stab with it, after all.

After a few moments thought, he answered. "Yeah." He told me gruffly. "Yeah, they do."

"Did I kill a man?" I asked next.

"No." He replied forcefully. "You killed a demon. For all we know, the poor bastard he was possessing was already dead."

"But he bled like a person." I told him. "He screamed like a person and acted like a person and was a person, once."

"All demons were people, once." He replied. "They've been to hell and been tortured and twisted in to something not human anymore, and then they grab bodies of other people to walk around in."

I didn't know how to respond to that.

Instead, started to get out of the car. Dean moved to let me pass, and I noticed him reach in for the dagger in the process. I walked up to Sam, and asked him for a trash bag to tape up over the broken glass. Dean started to sweep out the debris in the car while I went to work on one window, and Sam on the other.

Was this what the Hunting life was like? You do your best to save people, they very nearly die, and in the end a different person is dead and the car is broken and you're not sure what to do but just clean out the car on the side of the road that nobody has really passed in twenty minutes.

They were right. A punk-ass kid shouldn't be left alone to handle this stuff.

"Why do demons want Kevin?" I eventually asked.

"It's a long story." Sam answered, throwing me a rag wetted with a bottle of water. I remembered what it was for. To clean off any blood.

I looked at the inside of the car first. Not really any at all, besides a little bit in the floorboards from the blade. I cleaned it off quickly and methodically, trying hard to not think about it.

Next came the outside of the door, and it honestly looked like an awful red paint that had fallen down the side. I wiped it off just as methodically, focusing away from the thought that I had caused the stain to be there, that it was my fault all of this was happening.

If I hadn't gotten out that night, none of this would be happening. If I hadn't prayed to Castiel. If I hadn't called the brothers, none of this would've happened.

If I hadn't managed all of that, I would be dead.

Once the car was as fixed up as it could be, we all piled back in quietly and started driving again. I didn't argue about a lengthy drive to Missouri, about going to be with some stranger I didn't even know. I wasn't going to question these brothers anymore.

And as I sat there, in the moving car, I kept looking down. I could still see the dagger there, in my mind, glinting at me in all its silver and red glory. It had looked so strange and foreign and almost pretty when I first saw it, but once it had been used all I saw was a beautiful tool, something to kill with absolute certainty. I hadn't ever killed a demon before, only hurt them.

Now, I wasn't certain if I even wanted to kill them, or even hurt them.

All demons were people, once. They walk like people, talk like people, act like people, and bleed like people. They possessed those poor people, people who had had families and friends and maybe children or a spouse and a life, a whole life that had ended.

All demons were people, once.

Had I just killed a demon, or slaughtered a person?


	10. Talking About It

**Hey, guys! Sorry I've been away for a while! Been super busy. But I'll try to post more regularly now.**

 **For anybody wondering "Hey, Where TF Is Cas?" I promise, he'll be here soon. I'm making it follow along with the actual season episodes, but I promise he'll show up soon.**

 **Thank you all for reading this so far! It's my first fanfiction, and I was actually nervous about posting it, you know? But thank you all for bearing with it and not telling me how bad it sucks.**

 **XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

We were about an hour or so out from where they said Kevin and the house boat was when I finally started talking more. Beforehand, it'd just been quiet and simple questions. Did my ankle still hurt? Not really. Was I hungry? No. The boys stopped for burgers, even got me one just in case, but I didn't really eat. I wasn't able to. After almost fifteen minutes of the boys scarfing down their food, I handed the burger up to them, and Dean accepted it after a few moments.

But when we were almost an hour away, they asked a question that gave me the courage to speak.

"So, Kai, you got anything else you want to learn about?" Dean asked.

"No." I answered quietly. After a few moments, I finally spoke up better. "But if you guys want to ask me things, then you can."

This had been the situation I'd been dreading. There were so many things I didn't particularly want to tell them. My real name, for starters.

But it was about time I spoke up and offered to share information as well. At minimum, if I kept sitting in this awkward and scared silence any longer, it would probably kill my ability to speak up for a while.

"Ok." Sam said cautiously. "What do you like to do?" Starter question, testing the waters to see how forthcoming I'd be with information.

"Climb." I answered. "When I was younger I liked to write piano music."

"What kind of music?" He continued.

"Piano versions of classic rock songs, a few original ones, and kind of just whatever seems interesting. It's fun to see the difference that changing the key of a song will do to how it comes across from the heart." I saw Dean nod at that.

"Why climbing?" Dean asked.

"It was something I did with my mom and dad." I answered quietly. Dean moved on to a different question, sensing that family things were a sensitive zone.

"What's your favorite classic rock song?" He decided.

"Don't Fear the Reaper." I didn't even pause to think. I loved that song.

"Fair enough." He agreed with a nod. "Why?"

"I like it." I didn't really have a better explanation than that. Dean shuffled through a few things in the boot before he popped in a cassette tape. Within seconds the song came crackling through the stereo. Dean smacked the top of the stereo once, and the crackling stopped. "Thank you." I told him, surprised.

"No problem. You feeling any better?"

"I'm fine." I stated slightly less blankly than I had been. I liked music. It tended to ground me when I needed a way to focus. It was like the rhythm and lilt of the words gave me something to hold on to so that I could relax and stay sharp.

"That would be the magic of Blue Oyster Cult." Dean stated with a smile.

"So what's Kevin like?" I finally asked. "Why do demons want him as well?"

"Kevin is a prophet." Sam explained, taking over quickly. "That means he's able to see the future sometimes, and more importantly read the Word of God. He's the only one who can. Demons want him for the information and the valuability of having a prophet."

"Is he ok?" I inquired next.

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "He's good. At least as good as he can be."

"So why do you want to know everything?" Dean asked. "Most people, they're good with knowing whatever is pertinent to their direct situation, and they're good. You want to actually be trained. Not that there's anything against it," Dean made sure to state. "No, that's a lie. There's a little against it, because you're a kid, and you shouldn't have to learn this. But you want to learn this, whether out of necessity or out of desire. So why?"

"I don't have a family left to go back to." I replied. "No extended or anything. Both my parents were only children, and my grandparents all died either before I was born or when I was rinky-dink. I just… You tell me there are demons and ghosts and mummies-"

"No mummies." Sam interjected. "Just zombies. Or I guess theoretically a ghost could possess someone dressed like a mummy. But legit mummies aren't a thing."

"But everything else," I continued. "Dragons and werewolves and genies and shapeshifters and every kid's worst nightmare or best Halloween costume, it's all real, and I don't know what to do about that. I have no family I can rationally turn to for support. I have nothing but your word and what I've seen with my own eyes. I guess I'm just…. Looking for something I can get a firm grip on. For my own sanity."

"And you think hunting monsters will give you that?" Sam asked. I shrugged.

"You two seem pretty stable." I pointed out. "Car. Money. Food. Knowledge. Phones. Beds. Homes. Family. You guys have lost people, I can tell." Sam was about to speak up, but I cut him off. "You look at me like someone you have to protect at all costs, and in what you guys claim to do there's no way you can't have lost people. But you both still seem to be stable people, in control of yourselves."

"You think we're stable?" Sam sounded surprised, almost mocking at himself and his brother.

"Yeah." The words came out firmly from my mouth, something I was certain of. "More stable than anything I've had for the past two years."

There were a few moments of silence, until Dean finally broke it. "Damn." The word was uttered quietly, with surprise and almost…. Pity?

"We're here." Sam pointed out, this time louder. It was dark, and as I finally focused to the area outside the car I saw the headlights illuminating two words. _Fizzle's Folly._

"Who's Fizzle?" I couldn't help but wonder. They hadn't spoken about that name.

"Garth's…" Dean let out a sigh, as if he couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. "Sock puppet."

"Ew." I scrunched up my face in fear of what it was used for.

"NOT LIKE THAT." Sam interjected quickly. "It's a thing he uses to get little kids to open up if they've seen something."

"OK…" I decided not to press the matter further. "Are we all going to stay in the safe boat?"

"No." Sam and Dean shook their heads. "One of us will sleep in there with him. There's a spare sleeping bag. The other two will sleep in the car for the night."

"Is he even still up?" I took a glance at the clock. It was almost nine at night.

"Probably." Sam pointed to a light, barely seen against the dark coverings of the windows.

"Did he know you guys were coming?" I hadn't seen either of them make a phone call or send a text the whole time. Both of the brothers looked at each other for that one, and I had my answer. "Do you think he might want some FOOD?" I pointed out.

"He's got food in the fridge, I bet." Dean responded.

"No. That's not gonna fly." I argued. "You guys bought me breakfast, and you don't even know me. You guys probably know this prophet guy better, and you're just gonna drop me off as a novice Hunter and dump me on him without even warning the guy first?"

"He's used to the surprises that come with hunting." Sam fired right back.

"Were you two raised like this?" I asked, almost outraged. My parents had raised me to let people know beforehand when I was stopping by, to make sure it was ok, and then to be more than willing to come bearing food if need be.

"Yes."

"Yeah."

One was said with an obstinant shrug, almost akin to the word 'sure.' The other was delivered indignantly, as if I had almost insulted them by asking about their childhood.

"Was Kevin?" I asked smugly.

"Well," Dean started.

"Not quite." Sam finished. I sat back, arms crossed.

"And neither was I, and now I'm in it, but Kevin has been in it for longer than I have, but not nearly as long as you two." I stated. "Don't you think he would appreciate you two doing something nice for him, since he's more than likely not living in a boat named after a sock puppet by choice?"

When neither brother answered, I let out a huff of air and grabbed my back pack. "Now I'm going to go in there, you two are coming with me, and after we're done playing family reunion you two are going to go get him at least a freakin' burger, alright?"

I stared down both brothers evenly. This was where I was in my element, staring down two obstinate males trying to argue with me. I'd had two younger brothers; I'd been a part of _raising_ two younger brothers. This was what I was used to. This was what I was good at.

"Fine." Dean relented first. Sam turned to him in surprise. "What? She's got freaky mom eyes." He murmured.

"Thank you!" I said brightly, hopping out of the car. Dean shut off the car, and both brothers followed me after a moment.

"Wait!" Sam called. "There's a knock!"

I paused, letting the brothers go ahead of me. "You guys have a secret knock?" I asked. Dean nodded, looking for all the world like an embarrassed and absolutely 'done with the world' type of adult. "Nerds." I muttered, following them up to the door.

This was good. Talking was good. Jokes were good. They kept me away from looking at my hands, kept me away from thinking about the demon. It was still there, in the back of my mind, but as long as I didn't focus on it, I'd be alright.

For now, anyways.


	11. Kevin the Prophet

When we got to the door, Sam did a secret knock. It was odd, it was erratic, and it's not something I was even able to memorize. But the door was opened without question, and Sam shouted through it first. "Kevin! It's us! We brought someone!"

No answer, so they went on in, with me in tow behind them. I looked around the room in amazement. The walls were absolutely covered in weird symbols and writing and things that looked more occult-like than the Devil's Trap thing had. Where there weren't symbols, there were papers with pictures and writings and all sorts of odd and miscellaneous things that didn't make sense. It was like looking at the inside of a government conspiracy nut's secret warehouse.

And in the center of it all, at a table even more cluttered with papers and pictures (that I were starting to notice were all of the same thing, but different parts of it) than the walls, and a guy sat down before it, scribbling on a notebook and looking over at a… A rock.

The guy was writing down shit from a rock, with headphones over his ears that looked as though they were meant to block out sound instead of transfer it.

"Kevin!" Sam shouted as they inched nearer. He was still writing, not even looking up. He looked tired, sweaty, and like he didn't sleep well. Dean pushed forwards, and shouted his name loudly.

"KEVIN!"

That got the startled guy to look up, and he looked terrified for that moment. It was a look I recognized. It only crossed his face for a split second, but I understood it.

 _Today's gonna be the day I die. This is it._

That was the look for a moment, that look of fear that he was right in being about to die.

It was gone in an instant, replaced with relief and annoyance and definitive tiredness. "Why are you guys here? Have you found my mom?" He sounded so hopeful for a second, it made my heart break.

 _Have you found my mom?_

She was taken, taken from him, and he missed her. The Winchester boys were supposed to find her.

"No, not yet." Dean said. "But we did bring you someone."

"Someone?" Kevin asked. He stood up, and for the first time saw me. He was definitely taller than me, that wasn't a question. All of these people were. "Who's she? Is she supposed to help find my mom?"

"No." Sam answered. "This is Kai. She's in a similar situation to you."

"She's a prophet?" Kevin sounded surprised, erratic. "I thought there could only be one."

"She's not a prophet." Dean explained.

"Then why is she here?"

"I have a name." I interjected, stepping forwards a little bit. He watched me, met my eyes. "You could use it, you know."

"Well, I will when you become important." He answered rudely.

"And I'll let what you say become important when you stop being a dipshit." I shot back, standing my ground. Sam and Dean backed away for a second, almost watching the teenagers battle it out with witty and wittier snappy comebacks.

Kevin turned back to the guys, ignoring me once more. "I don't know whether to like her or not." He stated, pointing a finger at me. I smirked at him.

"Look, she's supposed to be your guard while we're not here," Dean started to explain. "And in return she's staying here because it's the safest place she can be."

"What about the Bunker?" Kevin asked.

"I just met them a day ago." I pointed out. "I'm not going to go to some secret Soviet Cold War hideout with two men twice my age and being the only female around them. My parents raised me better."

"And you came with them in a car some odd hours to stay with me, on a boat, instead?" Kevin countered. I shrugged.

"I offered to walk."

"Why not drive your own damn car, be useful?"

"Homeless people without a living dad, or mom for that matter, don't tend to have such nice cars like Sam and Dean do, much less options when it comes to safety." I finished with a tight smile. "I wanted to be here because I heard you were like me. If it's just going to be you being an asshole, then I'll take my training and go back to being homeless again."

The last bit was a lie. I didn't want to go back. There was no way in hell I planned on going back. I wanted that training, but I wanted some _where_ as well. I missed four walls around me.

After a few moments of terse silence, Kevin finally spoke again. "Can you leave me and… _Kai_ … alone for a little bit?"

The brothers looked from him to me, quietly asking if I was alright with this.

"I'll be fine." I said coolly. "You guys said this was a safe place, right? No demons can get me?" They nodded. "I'll be fine." I repeated. "The burgers we talked about, would you guys mind grabbing some?"

Dean walked over to a fridge in the corner, opening it up. "There's leftover Chinese in here." He pointed out. I stared him down pointedly, and he held his hands up. "Fine. Burgers. I could go for a burger."

Dean closed the fridge door, and both brothers left the boat quickly. After a moment, Kevin got up to go to the fridge himself. He rummaged around for a minute before pulling out a beer. "You want one?" He asked. His voice was different, now. Not so erratic. Stronger.

"I don't drink." I responded, just a little surprised. He just rummaged around again, pulled out a water bottle, and tossed it to me. I caught it quickly, still surprised.

"You made them go get burgers." He stated. "How?"

"I grew up with little brothers." I checked out the bottle of water, making sure it had been unopened before it had been given to me. It hadn't, so I checked out the cap. No holes or marks that it had been tampered with.

"You don't trust me."

"No, it's a habit." I answered. I remembered when I'd taken a drink that I hadn't checked out. Wasn't something I would've made it out of without a kind stranger.

"You said you were homeless?" He asked. I nodded. "Why?"

"Demons killed my family." I answered, still finding the words strange in my mouth. Kevin's face, it changed now. Dropped in to something more… more like understanding and familiarity.

"How long ago?" He popped the lid on his beer, and took a small sip.

"Almost three years." I heard him whistle at that.

"You've been homeless for that long?"

"Yeah."

"And demons have been after you for that long?"

"Kind of." I explained. "I almost dropped off their radar for the first few months or so. Once God… Castiel… When he came and visited, it was like they all appeared again all at once."

"That's what happens." He stated with a small laugh. "They try to help, Castiel and Dean and Sam and all those people, they try to fix things, make things better. But all they do is drag you down in the mud with them, and you can never go back after that. Not really. You can try, but you know you can't."

"Did you try?"

"I wasn't able to." He sat down, taking a larger sip. "God chose me, and I'm too important, I guess, to go back to a normal life."

"Castiel chose you?"

"No, not Cas." He corrected. "Castiel isn't God, not really. He's an angel that tried to be God. I mean God God, Castiel's father or whoever or whatever it is that made the angels, who are downright assholes just so you know."

I moved over to the wall, leaning against it. "You realize how crazy this all sounds, right?" I asked.

"You're the one who said demons killed your family." He responded, not looking at me.

"And Sam and Dean said you were in a similar situation to me." I pointed out. "Did demons kill your family, too?"

"One, in particular, kidnapped my mom." He answered. "But as for the rest of them, they can all go back to Hell for all I care. Why'd they kill your family?"

"Why'd they kidnap your mom?"

"They wanted me to translate this." He held up the rock, and I could see that it was engraved with so many odd symbols. Definitely nothing I'd ever seen before.

But it almost looked like a part of it was missing, like it'd been broken in two.

"You can read that?" I stepped forwards to take a closer look. I'd loved learning about ancient and dead languages in my free time, it made writing in a notebook that I didn't want people to read easy, but this was nothing I'd ever seen before.

"Kind of." He explained. "You ever known people with dyslexia?" I shook my head. "The letters and words and stuff kind of jump around here and there, like they're trying to sort themselves out but can't very well. It was easier when I had the full tablet, but since I only have half," he shrugged his shoulders, looking at the tablet thing forlornly. "It's a pain in the ass to do."

"You're still not making a lot of sense." I pointed out.

"You're new." He said, still staring at the rock. "You'll learn."

I watched him for a minute, watched him be lost in thought. "Why did they go get food? There was perfectly good leftover Chinese in the fridge."

"Do you want to eat the leftover Chinese?"

"No."

"Then why are you asking?"

"Because they don't do that." He answered. "They're the kind of guys to finish what you started before doing something new, for the most part. They don't just go get food. They don't just go do nice things like that. It's all work and hardship and single-minded following."

"They bought me breakfast." I pointed out. I don't know why I felt the need to defend them.

"Did they just arrive in town?" I nodded. "They had no food around beforehand. You would've had leftovers if they had been there for more than a few days."

"Food is food." I answered with a shrug. "I'd stolen my last meal. I wouldn't have really cared."

"Then why was it so important that you had them go get food for me?"

"You're a person, aren't you?" I asked. "You're like me. You didn't ask for this to happen. You're mostly all alone, in here."

"So?"

"Call it a homeless thing, but the kindest things we can do for each other is provide food, usually. A place to sleep is always nice, but you'll be fine sleeping under a bridge or in an alleyway. You'll die of malnutrition. If I'm going to be here with you, the least I could do without money or transportation of my own was to at least find a way to get you some." I explained. "You repay kindness for kindness, if it is extended towards you."

"How are you repaying the Winchesters, then?" He asked. I paused, and decided it really was the better idea to be honest.

"They're training me in how to defend myself, or at least they said they would," I started. "And in return I keep watch over you. I keep you safe from whatever."

"So you're my glorified babysitter?"

"I like to think of it as more of a payed friendship thing, like the Ritchie Rich movies." I replied. "Including the bit at the end where they actually become friends."

"You want to be friends?"

"Do you have any?"

"Not anymore."

"Neither do I." I pointed out. "And there's always more safety in numbers you like versus ones you tolerate."

"Fine." He decided, motioning to a chair in front of him. I sat down after a few moments, deciding it was better than standing. "You're going to stay here with me and make sure I don't die. The Winchesters are going to train you in the more brutal aspects of what they do. I keep the Winchesters updated on my half of the tablet." He took a long drink of the beer. "Sounds like a great co-dependency circle."


	12. The Prophet Hath Gotten Fed

Sam and Dean returned almost fifteen minutes later, and by then Kevin and I had formed a slightly rickety agreement. Work together. Survive together. He filled me in on bits and pieces of what he was doing, what it meant to translate the tablet and how it would send demons back to hell, permanently. I couldn't help but agree. Those sons of bitches needed a permanent lockup.

So while he translated and kept busy, I would play guardian. Keep watch. Keep updated. Go for food and drinks. Keep the prophet alive. Research if the Winchesters called on me, because apparently they did call for information sometimes.

"It's a huge nuisance." Kevin had said. "They'll call while I'm trying to translate, asking about something or other or needing me to pretend to be someone sometimes. Fake FBI. Fake CIA. I'll look up what I need to know when I need it, but it takes time out of translating, and the sooner I have this done the sooner I can go back to being normal."

So I was the girl for the odd jobs, more or less.

When the Winchesters came back to me and Kevin talking at relative ease, though, they seemed shocked. We were discussing fan theories about Doctor Who.

"Nope, I still firmly believe that he loved Clara." I argued with the Prophet, crossing my arms. He'd finished his beer by then, and moved to grab a water of his own.

"Eleven married River, though." Kevin pointed out. "And kissed her. And actively looked forwards to seeing her and going on dates with her and traveling the universe with her."

"He did the same with Clara!" I took a large drink of my water, now certain he wasn't going to drug me.

"He loved Clara as a sister, but no more." Kevin conceded as the secret weird-as-hell knock rang out behind me. "Come in!" He shouted, not even looking away. At this point we'd moved away pages and pictures to pull out blank paper and pens to write out and explain parts of our arguments, and I was writing out five points as to why 11 had most definitely loved Clara more than a friend.

"Look!" I held up the paper, using my pen to point to different things I'd written down. "Do you see this? He gladly went in to his own time stream, something that should've killed him, to save her. That's number one!"

"He also made out with River that very same episode."

"The GHOST of River."

"That he kept locked away for himself."

"10 did that, not 11."

"What the hell are you two talking about?" Dean asked. Neither of us turned around to answer.

"Doctor Who."

"Well, whoever the hell the doctor with the ghosts thing is, stow it so we can eat." He ordered, plopping a bag of takeout on the table. "Kevin, burger for you." He pulled one out for him and tossed it easily. "And Kai, you didn't really specify what you wanted on your burger, so I had them put the stuff on the side."

"Thanks." I took it and the fixings out and put them beside me, for now. I could eat later. I turned towards the brothers, ready to ask my questions. "So when do I start my training?"

"Tomorrow." Sam replied. "I'll take you out for shooting practice while Dean stays in with Kevin."

"Can I learn to shoot, too?" Kevin asked hesitantly. Dean and Sam looked at him for a moment, almost feeling sad, before Dean shook his head.

"No, kid. I'm sorry. It's important that this gets translated." Dean told him. "Besides, remember, the sooner you're done, the sooner you're done."

"Alright." Kevin agreed resolutely, nodding his head. From there, he proceeded to absolutely devour the burger like it was the first food he had seen in a while. Even Sam and Dean watched, definitely impressed. I pushed mine and the fixings towards him a few moments later, and he gladly ate those without questioning it. When Sam looked at me curiously, I shrugged.

"There's leftover Chinese, remember?" I whispered, just quiet enough for them to hear, but not Kevin. They both looked at me like I was crazy, absolutely crazy.

Once the food was gone, it was decided that I was going to sleep in the boat on the spare sleeping bag, while the brothers took the car. It was late, almost ten, when the brothers left the boat with a joke on no funny business.

I excused myself to the bathroom a few moments later, brushing my teeth and doing the whole nine. I didn't really have clothes to change in to for sleeping, so I settled for sleeping in what I wore.

"Aren't you going to sleep?" I asked when I emerged. It was as if we'd never been here. Kevin's table was back to being littered with pages, and he was scribbling on them again. The only difference was no headphones this time.

"I will in a few hours." He answered. "Dean is right, I need to get this done."

I didn't like it, but I let out a small and hesitant OK. I'd made enough waves today in forcing the brothers out to get food after they'd been pretty awesome to me, and then afterwards not really eating it.

Huh.

I hadn't really eaten at all since this morning.

I thought about it, trying to decide if I was hungry, and learned that I wasn't.

I really wasn't hungry.

Alright. Fair enough.

I grabbed the sleeping bag and picked a spot on the floor near the door. Kevin stopped writing then, looking at me confused. "I'm supposed to guard." I pointed out. "Can't really do that if you're awake and I'm not near the door."

"Fine." Kevin muttered, turning back to the rock and his notes. All the lights were off, now, except for the lamp by him. I watched, for a moment, and saw how studious he was. Writing, writing, writing. Double checking and triple checking. Pushing himself away for a few moments to rub at his temples, take a deep breath, and then go back to writing.

"Did you go to college?" I asked quietly. I was actually surprised he heard me.

"No. Not really." He answered, not looking up. "I was supposed to go, but then I got tapped to be a prophet. Kind of screwed everything up for me."

"You finished high school?" I asked next. That was when he stopped, looking up.

"Didn't you?"

"No. Homeless for three years, remember?" I asked, sitting up straighter. "Didn't make it past freshman year."

"Why didn't you go back? Try to figure out something with the system?"

"They had black eyes." I answered. "And they scared me. Something in my gut told me that if I went back, I'd be dead."

"Oh."

Oh.

That was all he said, and I really couldn't blame him. We were in a similar situation, with demons after us and our families, but so many things were different. The answer to why for Kevin was obvious in all questions except why he got tapped to being a prophet. The answer to why for me was unknown in all questions except why I was here. He finished high school, almost went to college, had had a shot at a great normal life. I'd never really gotten to go to college, never finished high school. His mom was still alive. Mine had run off, and the rest of my family was dead.

"Did your mom help you study a lot?"

"Yeah." Kevin answered with a smile, turning back to his work. "She never really let me stop doing it. If I wasn't studying, I was prepping. If I wasn't prepping, I was practicing cello or for an academic competition or something. She helped me out as much as she could, and pushed me to keep doing better."

"Cool." I whispered, settling in to sleep sitting up.

"Did yours?" He asked. I winced, remembering the sting of a slap over the kind words I had grown up hearing. It was still so vivid in my mind, to this day… I don't think I'll ever remember any happy time I had with her over that sudden 180 that she'd pulled when she'd walked out. I don't think I'll ever remember anything better than that smug look of pure hatred on her face, followed by my brothers crying and my dad just… Standing there, completely stunned as she left.

"She used to." I answered quietly, trying so hard to remember when I was younger, when I was in first and second and part of third grade, and mom would help me with my homework while dad was at work. "I ended up taking care of myself more after my brothers were born, and then after she left taking care of my brothers while my dad was at work."

"Why did she leave?"

"I don't know." I felt the urge to change the subject, quickly. "What about your dad? I haven't heard you mention him once."

"He died when I was little." Kevin answered, very point-blank. I looked up, and he was still working away, scribbling and scribbling and scribbling. "I don't remember a lot about him."

"Oh." I thought about that. Was it better to have known your parents and lost them, or not known them at all? "Do you wish you'd known him?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Mom didn't really talk about him much. Wasn't for any bad reason, but he was dead and she didn't really want to hang on to a dead husband when she had a living son right in front of her, you know?"

"Yeah." I understood that. After mom had left, dad had done his best to shake himself out of it and focus on the children he did have instead of the wife who didn't even stick around long enough to sign divorce papers; I had focused on being a good female influence instead of focusing on the one that had left. "I guess we all learn to focus on what's important instead of what's not there anymore."

And as I looked up at him, I saw him working so hard and fervently on translating, trying to split his focus between me and the tablet. I saw him focusing on what was right there, in front of him, instead of what was missing. Once he finished the task in front of him, he would get her back. He just had to finish, first.

If Sam and Dean had that same focus, I wondered what was missing from them that they were working so hard to not focus on.

"Good night, Kevin." I said, sitting up for sleep. I'd slept like this enough times where it was actually a comfortable position.

"Good night, Kai." He said absent-mindedly, going back to his work. I watched him through slitted eyes for a while, writing and writing and scribbling out pieces and all the world, for just a moment, looking like what I would expect a normal college student to appear like as they studied for their finals.

This was his final, and he was going to finish it to find his mom and get her back.

I hoped that I could guard him with the same determination and focus so that maybe, just maybe, I'd get a small amount of peace and closure about what had happened.

I hoped I could be just as good of a person as all of them, if I was going to be a hunter like them.


	13. I'm Walkin' On Sunshine Montage

So for the next two weeks, I was in what I called Hunter Bootcamp. Sam and Dean traded off on who stayed with Kevin and who went and taught me. Sam's lessons included shooting, proper research, how to make fake ID's and credit cards, what different symbols and runes meant, and who to call in what situations if I couldn't do it on my own. Dean's were about how to clean a gun, dismantling and putting back together different weapons, how to hustle pool, proper ways to impersonate an officer of power, and how to make my own rounds for different situations.

Each morning, at 5, I would wake up with Kevin, one of us would make coffee, and the other would heat up leftovers or a microwave meal (bought shortly after the first day of Hunter Bootcamp) for breakfast. Kevin would get to work after one or the other was started, and when it was finished I'd bring it over and review in my notebook what I'd worked on the day before. It was definitely getting it's fill of information, some of it written in plain English, while other bits were written in different dead languages I knew. Notes to self for me written in old languages, general information and such written in English. I had information on vampires, werewolves, ghosts, ghouls, djinn, lamias, angels, demons, and I don't even know what else. Different symbols, scrawled in the pages over and over and over again until I was certain I had them down without any issues. The words to a demon exorcism, written down and recited I don't know how many times so that I could remember it. A few different charts and diagrams I wrote to myself, making sure I remembered how to put together different guns, or how to cram salt in to a shotgun shell, or I don't know how many other things I learned.

After each day's work with a Winchester, we'd either grab more takeout or a few extra microwave meals, and head back to the boat. I didn't actually really eat anything for the first four days of Bootcamp. I just wasn't hungry.

But after that fourth day, in the evening, Kevin finally brought it up. He was writing, translating, doing his whole thing, while I worked on gun maintenance practice. I was wondering how long he stayed up to work on his stuff, and as it neared almost midnight I realized he didn't sleep much either. "You haven't been eating." He stated. I looked up from the pistol I was trying to put back together, and trying hard to not destroy. He was still writing away, not even looking up.

"So?"

"You need to eat."

"I'm fine. I'm used to not eating for long expanses of time." I reminded him.

"Yeah, but you have no reason to not eat."

"I'm not hungry." I stated, turning back to the pistol. I heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, and looked back up to see him meandering towards the fridge. He opened it, pulling out leftover breakfast from this morning and a lasagna microwave meal.

"Pick your poison." He replied. "Sausage and a half-eaten biscuit, or a pre-made lasagna that I, personally, have never enjoyed eating?"

"I'm fine." I said once more, turning back to the pistol once more. He put something back in the fridge and closed it, then proceeded to walk towards the microwave and start it up. "Kevin, I'm not hungry."

"You're still freaking out about something inside." He stated. "I did the same thing when Leviathans took me, except they were poisoning food supplies to make people as compliant and lazy as could be, so I had a decent reason to not eat."

"What's your point?" I asked. The microwave kept going, and I kept trying to clean and put together the mess of metal before me. I was certain I almost had it, though.

"That there are only three reasonable excuses to not eat food. There could be no food available to eat, nor a means to acquire it, so you would have to not eat for a while until you could acquire food. You could be kidnapped, and not trust the food because it seems dubious and you're uncertain as to whether it's poisoned or not, but you really don't want to take the risk. Or, you could've just eaten a large four course meal, and are unable to eat another bite." The microwave dinged itself done as Kevin continued, opening it up to examine the contents. I breathed in, and learned it was the leftover breakfast. "However, you haven't eaten recently, you've already checked to make sure we're not going to poison your food and water, and there is food available to eat to you that you can take without it being stealing, or without having to feed someone else first." Kevin walked towards me, as I sat in my normal corner almost finished putting the gun together. "So eat, that way you can be more prepared to do the whole guardian Hunter training thing in the morning."

I looked up, and he was sitting next to me, holding out a plastic container of food, with a fork already poking out of it. I stared at it for a second, and my stomach growled at me.

He was right.

I was hungry.

I took it from him quietly, and he walked back to his work. I ate it all, threw away the container, and finished my gun. Kevin ended up going to bed at exactly 2:45 in the morning, every morning.

It took another few days before I realized he was taking pills. I just wasn't here to notice.

"Hey, pills and beer aren't a good mix." I said, quickly moving to grab the beer out of his hands and move the pill bottle away. "Pick one or the other, but not both."

Kevin stared at me, looking infuriated for just a moment. That day hadn't been as much of a fun day. We were both grateful for the time away from each other.

Finally, ruefully, he snatched the bottle of pills out of my hand. My response was to dump his beer out in the sink and trash the can, then snag the rest of them from the fridge. "What are you doing?" He asked, seeing my motions.

"Getting rid of these." I answered. He got up, beginning to protest, and I tossed them all out a window before he could do anything. "No. I gave you a choice, and you chose the pills. No more beer until you're done with this shit."

"You're not my parent!" He argued, standing in my face.

"And you're not going to kill yourself when there are still demons out there waiting to be locked away!" I answered. "Now put up or shut up!"

We stood there staring at each other for a moment, until he relented. "When this is over, you're going to buy some more fucking beer." He stated, pointing a finger at me. I just crossed my arms, staring at him until he sat back down and started working again.

And then, maybe four days before the Winchesters left again, I thought of a question. "So, demons can possess anybody, right?" I asked. It was dinner, we were all sitting at or standing around the table.

"Yeah." Dean said with a nod.

"How do you guys protect yourselves from that?" I couldn't help but wonder. "I mean, Devil's Traps protect you when they're in someone else, but what do you do when they try to get inside you?"

Kevin held up his hand to show me the inside of his arm, while Dean and Sam both pulled down the fronts of their shirts. I saw identical black tattoos, a pentacle encircled in what appeared to be fire.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait." I said. "No way."

"What no way?" Sam asked as he and his brother let go of their shirts.

"I thought that was just some weird ass book thing!" I exclaimed.

"What weird ass…" Dean cut off as he seemed to remember something.

"I had a friend who was in to some creepy shit, really wasn't a good friend of mine." I started to explain. "Anyways, she convinced me to get a tattoo with her from her older brother, not too long before I turned 15. We both got that tattoo." I turned around and pulled down the back of my shirt just enough for them to see mine. "She said it was from a book series she liked, Supernatural, and that it would protect me from demons." I turned back around to see their stunned faces.

"That was lucky." Kevin muttered.

"Is that why I haven't been possessed?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"I have got to tell Leesha that she wasn't crazy." I muttered with a whistle. Weird friend saved my life with an impulsive tattoo. I went back to eating, laughing a little. "I remember, a few days later, mom was all pissed at all of us. I didn't realize what was going in when she zeroed in on me…" My voice trailed off as I remembered that day. "I didn't realize she was leaving. I just thought she had learned about the tattoo; I'd worked so hard to hide it. I thought she was mad at me, furious for doing something so stupid without permission."

I ate in stunned silence for the rest of the meal. I wasn't really certain what to think on that. One little thing, one stupid impulse decision to prove I wasn't a stupid kid, and I wasn't possessed by demons. I wasn't dead. I was just… Me.

I was me, without a family, because I wanted to impress the cool goth girl I was friends with.

I wasn't certain whether to feel thankful for it, or terrified about how such a small thing had such a big impact.

I went for thankful. I was still alive, after all. I could get some sort of justice for my family. I wouldn't be able to do that if I was dead.

Then, four days later, Dean and Sam left. By that time I had some actual clothes, a pantsuit and nice shoes in case I had to be fake FBI, a few fake ID's, and a credit card with a fake name on it and the account attached to some poor rich shmuck that wouldn't notice a few dollars missing here and there.

And that was that. No hugs good-bye. No "call us when you get there." Just an order to call if something came up, and a good luck. Both of the Winchesters seemed awkward about this, and I didn't want to drag it out too long if they were uncomfortable.

So they left, and I was all alone with the prophet.

I was alone, trusted with the one person that could lead us to a way to destroy demons forever.

No pressure.


	14. Kevin's Nightmares

I woke up one morning to the sound of screaming. Kevin's screaming, to be exact. I jumped from my post by the door and sprinted in to his room, sprinted to see him screaming and writhing on his bed. "KEVIN!" I shouted, shaking him. He was still flailing about, still screaming.

"Crowley's got me!" He screamed. "He's got me and he's got my mom and he's gonna kill me!"

"KEVIN!" I shouted again, shaking him harder. "WAKE UP!"

That was when he did it, sitting up straight about to scream again. I clamped a hand over his mouth quickly, and placed the other on his back. "Kevin, you're fine!" I said, lowering my voice just enough for him to hear me clearly. He looked over at me, eyes wild and afraid. "I'm going to move the hand over your mouth," I stated slowly. "But you can't scream, ok?" He didn't make a motion to answer, but I moved it anyways, and he started talking.

"He's here. He's found me. He's gonna kill me." He kept saying over and over, staring at me and pleading for me to understand almost.

"Nobody is here, Kevin." I said. "Nobody but you and me."

"He's here, somewhere!" The prophet argued. "He's inside my brain!"

"Nobody is here, Kevin." I repeated.

"But Crowley is, somehow!" He stared at me, and I could see his mind whirring as fast as it could. "Did you come in with any hex bags on you? Any weird coins or new things that shouldn't be there?"

"No," I told him, trying to calm him down. "I check myself every time before I leave for whatever, and again before I even step foot on the dock. No odd coins. No hex bags. Nothing new on my person." As a habit, I reached a hand over to tap one of the two daggers I'd bought myself. Nothing fancy, but they were iron, and I felt safer having them around.

"Then how is Crowley in my head?" He asked me.

"I don't know." I took a seat beside him, watching him just shake in pure terror. "Kevin, who's Crowley?"

"He's the King of Hell." He whispered. "He took me and cut off my finger and killed people and tortured me and wants me dead because I'm trying to shut his ass closed."

"It'll be ok, Kevin." I said, rubbing my hand on his back in small circles. "It'll be ok."

He shook for a while, and I glanced over at the clock. It was almost 4:30 in the morning. "Why don't we take the day off today, Kevin? Get out of the boat, both of us? Go watch a movie or go to a comic shop. I heard the new Magic Cards set comes out today." Total bullshit. I didn't even know what Magic Cards were. But he'd told me about two weeks after the Winchesters had left that he liked stuff like that. "We'll even hit up that Chinese restaurant and ask if they have any two-day-old takeout. It'll be good for you, to get outside and get some sun."

"No." He shook his head vehemently. "No, I can't. I have to finish this. The quicker it's done, the quicker he'll be out of my head."

"You might be doing this to yourself, Kevin." I warned. "Only getting a few hours of sleep, taking pills to keep you awake, working yourself on this to the bone; this might be a stress thing in your head."

"It's not a stress thing!" He shouted, turning to me. His eyes were crazy again, crazy with fear. "I'm sorry, but it's not a stress thing. It's real. He's in my head somehow, Kai." The scared look on his face, for a moment it reminded me of how Art or Josiah would look at me in the middle of the night, when one of them had a nightmare. "And I can't stop now. I've almost got the second trial figured out."

I took a deep breath, trying to make a compromise with him. I'd been living with the guy for a little over a month now. I could compromise with him, right?

"Alright, get the second trial figured out." I relented. "But after that trial is transcribed, you need to take a day for yourself. I'll keep you safe, don't worry." I told him. "But you need to take care of yourself too."

He nodded. "Ok. But I need to do the second trial first. What time is it?"

"Three in the morning." The lie rolled off my tongue like quicksilver. "You haven't been asleep for long. Get some more rest. We'll hit this again when your alarm goes off."

"Ok." He said, nodding. A few moments later, his head was back on the pillow and he was out like a light. I considered going back to sleep myself, but instead found myself gravitating towards Kevin's pills 'for pep.'

I took two without thinking about it, and moved to grab the chair at the table. I quietly put it in the doorway to Kevin's room, facing the door, and took a seat.

If anything was going to come through the door for him, I was going to be there to get it, and I was going to protect the prophet.

Nothing came through when his alarm went off, and he didn't wake until it starting buzzing. No demons or monsters or any sort of being came through the door.

I got up quickly, moved the chair back in it's place, and made fresh coffee. "How are you feeling?" I asked, turning around when I heard the shuffling of feet turning on the lights.

He really did look like shit. His hair was still mussed up. His eyes were bleary, but cautious, scanning every inch of the room as he walked in.

"I'm fine." He said, not looking me in the eyes. I poured him a cup and handed it to him quietly. He examined it, almost how I had with the bottle of water on day one, before accepting the drink.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked quietly.

"I said I'm fine." He repeated, still not looking me in the eyes. I just nodded, and went to check the fridge. We still had hot dogs, a few extra microwave meals, and half of a leftover extra-large pizza from a few days ago.

I could stay in for a few days with him, keep watch and make sure nothing went tipsy.

But the day passed uneventfully as he continued to examine his work, write it out move away, write it out and post it in some specific spot on the walls or in front of him. I took a seat at the top of the stairs, writing down things myself and practicing what I knew. Made an inventory list of what food we had and what food I would eventually need to get. Thought up different ideas for making a cake to give to the poor guy when this was all over.

Night came, Kevin crashed out, and it was the same thing. Wailing and screaming at, again, 4:30 in the morning. This time I'd stayed in the chair again, outside his room. I'd popped three of the pills Kevin took so frequently, and stayed watch all night. When I heard his screaming, though, I got up quickly and ran to him once more.

"KEVIN!" I shouted at him, trying to get his attention. He woke up with a start, looking around the room frantically. Once he looked at me, he screamed, moving away farther. "Kevin, Kevin, talk to me!" I ordered, trying to get closer. He pulled something out from under his bed, two somethings, and threw one at me. It was a liquid, and I stopped when it hit my face and drenched the front of my shirt. "Was that holy water?" I asked, opening my eyes. He was holding a knife towards me, and a very sad looking one at that. "I'm not a demon, Kevin." I told him.

"It was possessing you!" He told me. "Crowley had a demon possessing you, making you shoot at my feet, then my legs, then my knees, then going up until you killed me with a shot to the head. You were laughing, Crowley was laughing, everybody was laughing at me while I got shot at!" He exclaimed, shaking like a little leaf. I moved towards him slowly, pushing the knife away.

"I'm not a demon." I told him. "Nor could I be possessed by one. See?" I turned my back to him, and lifted my hair up while pulling down the back of my shirt. "Accidental demon-proofing still in place." I assured him. I heard rustling behind me, and suddenly felt his hand feeling along the tattoo, rubbing at it to make sure it wasn't fake and wouldn't smear.

Once he finished, I turned back around to him. He still looked terrified, but just a hair less terrified than earlier. "Feel better?" I asked. He shook his head.

Somehow, I got him to sleep again.

Somehow, I stayed awake and stayed in again with him.

And somehow, this cycle continued for the next few weeks. He'd wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. I'd go to him, comfort him, and stay up. I would stay up for about four-ish days total without sleeping, thanks to Prophet Pills for Pep, and then crash during the afternoon on the fifth day right beside the door.

Each day he woke up, I would ask him how close he was to finishing the second trial. "Almost there." He'd tell me absent-mindedly. Or, sometimes, it would be an "I'd be closer if you would stop interrupting me."

I only went out for food once, and made it a large shopping trip. Canned goods, microwave meals, more coffee, pep pills, and bottled water packages. When I returned, Kevin was huddled up in his closet, brandishing a frying pan and a wooden spoon.

That was when he started having daytime hallucinations. If I didn't get to him fast enough, he wound up in his closet, using his same frying pan and wooden spoon to ward off whatever was harming him. Saying they would protect him from Crowley.

I reminded him once, and only once, that my job was to protect him from Crowley.

"Every time you do, you die." He answered. "Crowley gets you and his demons cut you up and they're laughing and you die, while Crowley takes me and does what he wants. They want you too, but they just want you dead to have you dead, and that's what they do."

I didn't give him any more verbal reminders, just sat with him most of the time. If I wasn't sitting with him, I was playing soothing music (or loud music, depending on how bad it was) and making food to try and coax the tired and overworked (and more than likely sleep-deprived) prophet out of his little hidey hole in the closet and at least on the floor in front of it, so we could eat goddammit.

But finally, weeks later, he figured it out. He solved it, solved the second trial. He whooped for joy at that, shouting to me that he'd done it.

Then he promptly passed out, and I called Sam and Dean to tell them to come, NOW. Kevin was talking, still passed out and more than likely delirious. I hung up on the Winchesters then, and did my best to carry Kevin back in to his bed.

When he woke up a few hours later, there was food made for him and I was sitting at the table, writing out different things. "What're you doing?" Kevin asked, stumbling in. "What time is it?"

"Five-ish." I answered, not looking up from my own writing. Let's see how he likes the busy treatment. "There's food on the counter for you. I heated up some tacos."

"Thanks." He answered. I heard him root around for a napkin or something before he joined me in his normal seat at the table.

"Any nightmares again?" I asked.

"No." He sat there, watching me while I wrote. "What're you doing?" He asked again.

"Planning." I answered.

"Planning what?"

"A day that'll help you out immensely." I stopped, holding up my page to show him. There was a comic shop on there, a nearby street fair going on for the next two weeks, plans for swimming, different exercises and things to get him OUT OF THIS BOAT. "Remember the deal? You figure out the second trial, you take a day for yourself."

"Oh. Yeah. That." He muttered, nodding as he looked at the paper. "What makes you think I like comic book shops and fairs?"

"Your very interesting aspect of our Doctor Who Debate." I answered snidely. Nerds know nerds the same way homeless people know other homeless people.

"Oh yeah." He said, nodding. I could see the half-hearted effort, though. It was the same kind that my dad would make on a particularly bad day, or the same effort he would make when I asked him how the search for mom had went.

"You intend on following through, right?" I tested, wondering if he would lie to me or not.

"Can I take a rain check until after I finish the last trial?" He asked in response, setting down the paper. I stared at him, fixing him with my best glare, and he sighed. "I'm almost done now, I can feel it. Two trials down, one more to go, and I won't be looking over my shoulder so much anymore. I can see my mom again. I can maybe go to college. I can have a life again." He sounded so hopeful, so cheery.

I remembered how Josiah would talk like that, some days. If we could just find mom, everything would be fine. That was what he would tell me. You wouldn't have to work so much, dad would be happier, Art wouldn't cry as much, everything will be better if we just find mom.

To which I always replied back with the same answer, the same words that were meant to let him know everything would be fine. What, and say that dad can't do this on his own? Say that I'm not the cool older sister. You wound me, Josiah! You wound me! Everything will be fine, even with mom gone. You've just got to believe, somedays.

This time, though, Kevin actually could get it all back. His mom. His college options. His future. His everything. He could do it, really do it.

I had no family to get back. I had no college that would take someone who didn't even get their GED. I had no people that either didn't think I was dead, or didn't hate me for running away and not coming back.

Kevin had everything to gain from this, and all I had was revenge on entities I didn't even fully understand.

"Alright." I finally conceded. "Rain check. Your choice."

That was when we heard a knock on the door, followed by a shout to open up. Dean.

"Didn't you just call them?" Kevin asked, setting down the paper. I took it without him noticing, and folded it up.

"Almost six hours ago." I replied, grabbing my gun. It was probably them, but better safe than sorry.

Kevin wielded the frying pan behind me when I opened up the door to make sure it was, in fact, the Winchesters.

I don't know if they were more impressed or concerned when they walked in the door to see us.

They were definitely concerned when Kevin started telling them Crowley got in to his head. I could see the looks from both of them, wondering if they were right to trust me with their prophet seeming to go nuts.

I just shrugged, remembering that they all had everything to gain from this. It wasn't my place to step on any toes, just to be there and accept the protection.

I wondered briefly if this was the kind of aide and rescue that Castiel had originally intended on.


	15. Fun Fact: The King of Hell is My Height

Crowley got us.

Kevin wasn't crazy, Kevin wasn't crazy, and Crowley got us. The King of Hell has us both. He has us both.

Kevin had told Sam and Dean about the trial. Rescuing a soul from Hell.

Dean had stayed with us, letting me head out just a little bit more to go do normal things. Hustle up more cash from pool, cards, pickpocketing and easy magic tricks. Things I was used to doing. Kevin had kept freaking out, and I remembered Dean getting so mad at me for not calling them sooner. I could see his lack of trust in me, I could still hear his yelling at me, outside the boat, that I shouldn't have let it get this far.

Followed by Kevin defending me. Telling them I'd done good at keeping him safe, keeping him alright.

But Dean was right. I let it get too far. I'd been so desperate to prove myself since they'd saved me, I wanted to do good.

I just wanted to impress them, to be a part of their world.

And now Crowley had us, somewhere, I didn't even know where.

He'd tortured the both of us together for a long time, threatening us if we didn't tell them where Kevin had hidden the other half of the tablet. I hadn't even known he'd done that. I'd been out that day, Kevin had gone out, Dean hadn't watched him. I almost laughed when I learned that Kevin had hidden the tablet. Dean had been so mad at me, saying I hadn't done well enough, and here we were kidnapped, and Kevin slipped right by them apparently; right by Dean to hide the tablet half in his delirium.

I laughed at that one. Crowley had turned to me, then, and boy did I think that was even funnier. The damn King of Hell was maybe an inch taller than me. MAYBE. His face was all red and fuming like a tomato, and he screamed at me asking what was so funny.

"Dean had been so mad at me that I hadn't done my job right." I laughed back. My God, I was delirious too. "And apparently he didn't do so good either!" I kept laughing, laughing like there was no tomorrow. "And the King of Hell looks like a damn tomato, and I'm trapped in a room run by demons with a prophet of the friggin lord that outsmarted the Winchesters, you, and everyone!" I was still laughing, still laughing and laughing and laughing.

I took a nice stab to the arm for that, but damn it was worth it. I was still laughing, and Kevin was hyperventilating and looking at me like I was insane, still laughing with a knife sticking out of my arm.

And he laughed right along with me.

So both of us were laughing, laughing in the face of the King of Hell when in all reality we should be crying, should be screaming, should be begging for our lives and doing everything my family did when they were taken by demons.

But we didn't.

We just laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed.

It wasn't long after that before we were separated. I don't know where Kevin went. I know he's important to them, I know they didn't kill him, but other than that I didn't know. I hoped he was ok. I hoped he was fine and safe and that he would keep laughing, keep doing well.

And then I was alone, in a cell, tied to a chair that reeked of my own blood, piss, sweat, and shit. My muscles ached some days, due to a lack of movement and the continued confinement. Other days, I just couldn't feel them. I tried to wiggle, just to get them exercised a little bit, and that was kind of it for me.

Some days, I sang. I sang "Free Bird." I sang "Don't Fear the Reaper." I sang classic rock and jazz and pop and everything else I could think of. I sang ballads and upbeat show tunes, I sang every theme song and tapped out the beats of songs without lyrics.

If I wasn't singing, I was making up stories and doing what I could to pass the time. I retold classics with a twist, nursery rhymes in real life situations, whatever I could tell that wouldn't give anything away, I would.

I fought and fought and did everything I could to prove they couldn't get to me.

I was scared. Terrified. And I did everything to hide that fact, or to flaunt it so that they knew it wouldn't matter.

I don't know how long it was until Crowley flew in with a rage.

"WHERE IS HE?!" He roared at me, kicking my chair to the side. I winced at the slight amount of pain. It was my muscles, they were painful. Unused.

"Where's who?" I asked with a laugh. "Your boyfriend? My boyfriend? If you want the President he's probably on vacation if he's not at home. If you want God I've got no idea, apparently I've never actually met the guy before."

"WHERE'S KEVIN?!" He screamed, kicking me in the stomach. I would've doubled over, but I wasn't able to. The bindings on my arms were too tight.

"Wasn't he with you?" I asked in response.

"HE'S GONE!" He shouted, kicking me again. That time, something cracked. That time, there was pain. Undeniable pain.

"And you think…." I coughed, trying to catch my breath. "That he's in my stomach for you to beat on?"

"WHERE IS HE?!" He screamed again. He snapped, and suddenly my chair and binds disappeared. I tried to sit up, and was pinned against the concrete by a force I couldn't see. "WHERE'S THE PROPHET?!"

"Still…. Don't…. Know." I repeated, feeling things crunching inside of me. I squirmed, trying to find some sort of leverage, and it only got worse.

"WHAT ABOUT CASTIEL?!" He kept screaming. He dropped me, then. I fell to the ground, collapsing and coughing and somehow wrapping my arms around my stomach in pain. So much pain. I coughed, and felt blood. It wasn't the first time, but I hoped it wasn't the last either.

"What about him?" I coughed out.

"That ANGEL could've pulled him out! Where's the angel?!" He screamed at me. I started trying to stand, trying to get my bearings. If I could stand, I could fight. If I could fight, I could get out of here. I could get help, get safety. Get something and somewhere.

"I haven't seen him in years." I muttered, grasping my stomach. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Kevin got out, but how? Was he safe? Was he alive?

If he was out of here, it had to be better.

"But you know that's how we found you, right?" Crowley asked with a sneer. I looked up at him, to see him drastically calmed down and calculating.

"What do you mean?" I asked, staggering forwards. Crowley took two steps towards me, and punched me across the face. I fell down hard, smacking my head on the concrete floor. "The fuck, man?" I muttered, putting a hand to my cheek, then my head. I coughed up more blood, and felt some where my hand touched my scalp.

"You fell off our radar after you ran away." He explained, watching me while I picked myself up. "That little tattoo you have kept us away from you. But, when the angel came to say hi, that put you right on our radar again, and we could find you easier."

"That doesn't make sense." I pointed out, finally standing. Crowley's hand moved just a little to the side, and I was flung in to the next wall. I hit hard, with my shoulder, and felt it dislocate.

"Angels have a certain… Aura about them." He continued, as if I hadn't just been thrown sideways by an invisible thing. "Once they've healed or touched a human, it leaves residue on them. He healed you," I started to get up, shake my head, and I was just flung back in to the wall again. "He offered you food, didn't he? And you felt better?"

I remembered the sandwich, my favorite.

"He laced it with a little bit of God juice, just enough to help you out." Crowley told me. "That's how we found you."

"What did you want with me?" I stood back up cautiously, waiting to be flung again.

"Your mother."

"What about her?" I took a few staggering steps, and this time felt sharp pain. I cried out and looked down to see a lengthy cut, sideways, across the entire expanse of my stomach.

"Don't you find it odd that she went from perfectly normal to… demonic, over a night?" He asked me.

"People flip out." I answered. "I thought she'd just cracked and had enough or something."

"No, no, you see, that wasn't your mother anymore." I fought to listen as the bleeding kept going, and I did what I could to stop it with my hands, with my shirt. "That was a demon, one that I had been hunting down for quite some time."

"What's that have to do with my family?"

"Wouldn't you look for someone if they just left you so suddenly?" I sunk to my knees, not even looking at him anymore as he chuckled. "We hoped you all would know. And after you got away, first it became a matter of finding her. After a while, it was just principal. Bad reputation for the King when word gets out that a meager scruff of a girl got away from his demons." I just focused on keeping myself alive, focused on trying to stop the bleeding that wouldn't stop. "Now come on, you can do better than that. Stand up," I saw him lift a hand up, out of the corner of my eye, and I was standing too. "Put your hands by your sides," my hands fell away, forced, away from trying to stop myself from bleeding out. "And show me your best brave face."

I stared at the King of Hell, the thing who had ordered the kill on my family. The thing that had made my life hell, made everyone's life hell.

And I spat at his feet.

"Kiss my ass." I replied.

Then there was light, light and warmth and I heard Crowley screaming. "NO! NO! NOT AGAIN, DAMMIT!" He ran for me, reaching out, and the last thing I saw was him repelled backwards.

And I was in a road. It was dark, I was still in pain, and laying in the middle of the road with someone… Someone was next to me.

I looked around, and was blinded by light. Light that wasn't as bright or as warm, but it was light. Harsh. Familiar. Metallic.

A car.

I looked over, and saw a tan coat covering me, with a hand on the side with it. The hand was keeping me close, close to a body I could barely feel and suddenly feel the heat of all at once. Heat, bloodied and tired heat.

There was screeching, and a car stopped in front of us. I could barely see, I was so blinded. I hoped it wasn't more demons. For all my bravado and hope, I had just been nearly disemboweled without the guy laying a finger on me.

I wasn't certain if I could do it again.

"CAS!" A voice shouted. Familiar. Gruff. The last time I heard it, he was shouting at me. "KAI!"

It was Dean.

I looked up, not at Dean but at Cas, Castiel, the angel. He was looking up at Dean, and I could see fire and…. Sarcasm? Maybe just a hint of it in his gaze at the hunter. Sam must've been in the shotgun seat. I hoped they had Kevin.

"A little help here." Castiel requested.

That was when I passed out.


	16. Saved By An Angel (Again)

**Ok, WriKai here. This chapter starts taking place in "Clip Show," for anyone trying to follow along with actual episodes.**

 **XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

I woke up to pain. Serious, immense pain. My stomach. My chest. My sides. My face. My legs. My arms. My shoulder. Everything and everywhere, there was pain.

I didn't know where I was. That was the second thing. I was in pain, I was in an unfamiliar area in unfamiliar clothes, and then I was scared. Scared I was going to be hurt. Scared I had caused someone else to get hurt. Scared of what was to come.

I tried to sit up, slowly, and that just made it worse. I laid back down immediately, trying to get a sense of what went down. I'd been…. I'd been kidnapped. Kidnapped by a demon, demons, the head honcho guy. Crowley. Almost my height. Tomato man.

Pain. So much pain. Pain and laughing and sarcasm and broken things and being thrown around like a damn puppet on a sadistic fishing line.

But now there was no concrete. No chair. No prison and lack of food or water or company. No demons. No Crowley.

Not yet, anyways.

There had been light, two different types. One had made a demon scream, the other had made rubber screech.

Someone had rescued me. They'd been hurt badly as well, but they'd rescued me.

Cas.

Castiel.

"Hello?" I asked, trying to make my voice loud. It came out very embarrassingly scared, and caused me no small headache. "Shit," I muttered, bringing my hands to my head. I expected one to come away bloody, for a minute.

No. There were stitches there. Bit of shaved, bald skin, and some stitches.

I could accept that.

Curious, I reached over to where my stomach had been cut open as well, and saw the marks around my wrists. They were so bruised and scabbed from the bindings, so shrunken compared to the rest of my body. All of my muscles were suffering awfully from disuse.

I finally met my stomach, though, and ran my fingers lightly across where the slice had been. It hurt, bad, but there were stitches there too. And my shoulder didn't hurt as bad to move, so that must've been fixed.

I didn't have to reach back up for my cheek to feel that it was bruised, but no swollen.

"Hello?" I tried again, turning my head from side to side. I was in a nice room, nicer than a hotel room, with absolutely no personalization in it. It was like someone had left a perfectly good bedroom intact, but sucked all the personality out of it.

But there, in the corner, just barely in my vision. It was sitting on a nearby chair.

Oh, Canada. My backpack. HELL YEAH!

Then I heard them. Footsteps. I took a glance at the door, and watched as someone opened it to come through.

Dean.

"How're you feeling, champ?" He asked kindly, holding a tray. It had beer, three peanut butter cups, and some jerky.

"Like I lost a fight with Freddy Kruger." I answered. "Can you help me sit up?"

"Yeah, we'll just need to be careful about your stitches." He told me, setting down the tray. He was careful with helping me up, almost as if he was afraid I would break.

After I was sitting, neither of us spoke for a few minutes. I wasn't quite certain what to say, and I don't think Dean was either. I finally broke the silence, though.

"I'm sorry." I told him quietly. He looked stunned at that, actually.

"For what?"

"I was supposed to protect Kevin." I couldn't meet his eyes. "You were right to be mad at me. I let it get too far and I couldn't protect either of us from Crowley. You were right. I'm just a punk kid." I took a deep breath, steadying my air. "Is Kevin alright?"

"Yeah, he's fine. We've got him put up in a hotel for a few days, trying to give him a bit of a break." He answered. "But you shouldn't be apologizing."

"Why not?" That time I met his gaze, and I was angry; angry with myself. "You guys gave me one job. Protect the prophet. Keep him safe from demons. You guys saved my life, trained me, gave me a job, and I failed at the first hurdle. If I'm not apologizing, I should be begging for you to not throw me out of here due to my utter lack of competence with hunter-related shit."

"Hey, hey, relax." He told me. "I lost him too. He snuck out on me and hid a part of the demon tablet."

"I know."

"And we weren't that far away when the both of you were taken."

"That shouldn't have mattered." I argued. "I should've been able to do better."

"Kai, how long have you been a hunter?" Dean asked. He almost sounded like my dad for a minute when he was trying to make a lawyer-style point.

"A few months."

"Kevin's been a prophet for maybe a year and a half. Sam and I have been Hunters our whole lives. Crowley's been a demon for who knows how long." Dean told me. "You did your best to protect him and keep him safe, right?" I nodded. "And in there, with Crowley, you did your best to keep Kevin alive too, right?"

I thought about it for a few moments. "I got him to laugh." I told him. "I got him to laugh at the King of Hell."

"Then you did the best you could," Dean concluded. "And in fact, I shouldn't have yelled at you. I was just worried about Sammy, you know?"

"Is Sam ok?" I asked next. Dean nodded.

"He's fine, he's fine." He told me. "Little ragged, but fine."

"And… Castiel…" I took a deep breath. "That was him, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, kiddo." Dean said with a nod. "It was."

"Is he ok?"

"Yeah. He's already mostly healed up."

"How did he get me out of there?"

"He used up the last bit of angel mojo he could muster to grab you." Dean answered. "At least, that was what he told us when we asked him why the hell he hadn't healed himself and why he had you."

"Oh." I wasn't certain as to what else to say. "How did he find me?"

"No idea." Dean said with a shrug. "But, let's focus on more important things right now, like getting you fed and hydrated."

I looked at the options before me, and for the first time in my life felt my stomach attempt to murder me at the sight of chocolate. "I think I'll pass for right now." I told him quietly, trying hard to not seem picky or ungrateful. "You said Sam was feeling ragged, and that Cas was only mostly fine. See if they want anything, first. I'll pick off the leftovers."

"You sure?" Dean asked. I nodded. "Alright. I'll swing by with water in just a little bit. Just stay in bed, alright?"

"Can I see Castiel?" I asked suddenly. Dean didn't look like he knew whether to say yes or no. "I just wanted to thank him. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be alive right now for various reasons."

"I'll tell him you asked for him." Dean responded. Not a yes. Not a no. Just that he would put the ball in Castiel's court.

That was all I could ask for, I guess.

"Thank you." I said, leaning back against the headboard.

Dean left quietly, after that, taking the tray of "assorted" snacks with him. I did my best to listen in on the conversation they had, they were only just down the hall apparently. Sam was there. He convinced Dean to go for a food run. Castiel was there.

Castiel was there.

Dean was mad at Castiel. Mad at him for running. Mad at him for staying out of contact. Mad at him for not dropping a dime on me. Mad at him for hiding…. The angel tablet? There's more than one tablet?

He was mad at Castiel for losing the angel tablet. It was gone. Demons had it.

"Do we have a room 7B?" Sam interjected. Dean said something about going to look for it, now.

"And Cas," I could almost feel the swivel as he talked to the angel again. Why did he call him Cas? "Kai is awake, you know. She deserves some answers. Hell, we all do, but right now she's the one who's asking for you." Silence. Maybe filled by a nod? "And bring her some water or something!" Dean added. Then there was silence, again. Footsteps, I couldn't hear those.

And then Castiel was in my doorway, standing, looking for all the world like an awkward teenager about to talk to the father of the girl he wants to ask out, and I didn't know what to do.

What do you do, what do you say, when there's an angel that's saved your life twice, he's in your doorway, and this will probably be the first real conversation you've had with him, as him being himself?


	17. When I First Met Castiel

"Hello." He said, still standing in the doorway.

"Hey." I greeted back quietly. I noticed he had a glass of water in his hand. "You feeling ok?"

"Yes, I'm fine." He answered. Lie. I could see it. He was a bad liar, and he still hurt. "Are you alright?"

"I think so." I answered honestly. No point in trying to hide that I was worse off than he was. "How did you find me?"

"The same way Crowley found you." He explained, moving closer. He offered me the water, and I drank it greedily while he sat down. "By tracking the residual energies."

"But I hadn't seen you in a year or two." I pointed out.

"The ones from the tablet, and from being around the Prophet." He explained. "And Crowley told me at one point that he had you, so that was helpful."

"Did he have you too?" I asked. He nodded.

"For a little bit."

"How did you get away?"

"I had to kill another angel." I was thrown sideways by this. Angels were supposed to be good. Dean and Sam told me they were dicks, yeah, but still… Angels were supposed to be good and righteous and above all of this.

"Why?"

"He was a traitor to his own kind."

"Oh." I thought for a few minutes before I asked another question. "Is what Dean said true, about pulling me out? You could've healed yourself, but instead you went and got me?" I had to know. There were a lot of things I had to know, but that one was the most important one at the moment.

"Yes."

"Why me?"

That was a loaded question that could be applied to so many things. Why save me, both the first and second time? Why talk with me? Why heal me? Why help me? Why not answer me?

Why me?

"I felt guilty."

"For what?" I honestly wanted to ask how angels felt guilt, but decided against it. That was for another day. But when Castiel didn't answer, a thought dawned on me. "You heard me, didn't you? When I prayed to you so many times."

…

"Yes." He admitted.

"Why didn't you respond again?"

"I couldn't, at first." He explained. "And then I couldn't again, but for a different reason."

"And after that?"

"Dean and Sam had you." He said. "I thought you would be fine with them."

Another lie, that one an even worse one. "You didn't want to see me." I stated. I could understand that. He was an angel, I was a human he had helped and inadvertently made a target once more. Nobody likes looking at mistakes.

"No." He said sharply, shaking his head. I was actually… Thrown by that. "I did want to see you again," he stopped, as if finding the words. I could almost sense the "but" in his voice, the one that would come next. "But I was not in control of myself."

"Are you now?"

"Yes."

"And are you ok?"

"Why did you keep asking that?" It was his turn to seem confused and surprised and… Was that a slight amount of lightness in his voice? Like he was happy about that? "You are the only person I've ever met to ask that so consistently about a stranger."

"Why wouldn't I ask?"

"Most people… They assume an angel or God would not have issues with… being 'alright.'" He answered. "So it was odd to me that you kept wondering."

"I try to keep track of the people who help me." I decided to explain. "If I feel indebted, and I can do something to help them, I can and I kind of just will until everything is ok. It's just a part of my personality, I guess. I'm used to doing it for others."

"Like with your younger brothers?" He asked. I winced, slightly, but perceptibly. I forgot that he knew the whole shebang.

No. That's a lie, even to myself.

I was hoping he FORGOT the majority of my story.

"Yeah." I ended up answering quietly. "Like with them."

"You're good at taking care of people." He stated. I scoffed.

"Yeah, sure. Look at me." I made a small sweeping gesture to my body. "Hell, you should've seen Kevin most days."

"I have, actually." He pointed out. "Not Kevin, but the previous prophets before him. Luke and Chuck."

"Chuck?" I asked. Castiel just kept going.

"Neither of them… had a good way of dealing with the task set upon them. But you helped Kevin continue on his path. You convinced the Winchesters, somehow, to let you do that without knowing them for long."

"It was their idea." I felt compelled to point that fact out.

"And yet something within you, when they met you, told them it was a good idea." Castiel countered. "There is something important about you, Kai," he was going by the name I'd given the Winchesters. I didn't know if that was because he was being kind, or if he had somehow remembered everything but that. "I don't know what it is, but it's there."

"Crowley said he went after me because my mom was possessed by a demon." I told him after a few minutes. "That doesn't make sense, though. Why would one demon kill to find another? Aren't they supposed to be on the same side?"

"Demons are chaotic creatures." Castiel answered. "They do what they want when they want to, with no clear lines drawn between acting on impulse and acting out of loyalty. They don't all work towards the same goals." Castiel let out a small laugh, for a minute. "Sometimes, I think demons are more like angels than angels are."

"Why is that?"

"Because it's the exact same way with my kind." His gaze was so far away when he said this. "Similar goals, sometimes, with different groups. Totally different goals with others. None with the same way of achieving them, and none agreeing with how another works."

I remembered what he said, that he had to kill another angel when he was taken by Crowley as well, so that he could escape. "So if angels can be good and bad, can demons be that way too?"

"I've only met one demon who crossed the line between the two." He said simply.

"And what happened?" I was curious. This was all just… Different. It was like hearing that the sky was bright pink instead of blue. Angels can be bad. A demon can be good. Neither could be trusted, as it seemed.

"She died." His voice was flat, now. "Crowley killed her."

"I'm sorry." He knew her. She must've been important, too.

"She died the only way she would've allowed." He told me. "I don't think that's anything to apologize for."

The both of us heard our names being called, suddenly. It was Sam. "KAI! CAS! MOVIE TIME!"

"Can you help me up?" I asked the angel. He nodded, and gingerly we both somehow managed to get me standing with minimal pain. Before exiting the room, though, I went for my backpack to double check that everything was there. Notebook, clothes, wallet, weapons… Nothing had been changed.

I took my notebook and a pen before hobbling over to Castiel. I would need some serious time standing up to get the muscles moving properly again. I almost tripped, but Castiel caught me quickly.

"Thank you." I said. I meant it for more than him catching me, though. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for saving me again. Thank you for everything.

Just…. Thank you.

"You're welcome." He replied, meeting my gaze evenly. Somehow, I think he understood what all I was thanking him for.

So he helped me get to a new room in the area I was in, and I stumbled along feeling a strange sense of warmth and comfort I hadn't even felt living with Kevin.

This was good. This was right.

It was like I was finally in the right spot, somewhere that wouldn't be temporary.

I hoped that that feeling was true.


	18. The Weird Movie, With 3 Exclamations

"So what're we watching?" I asked as Castiel helped me sit. I looked over at the old movie projector set up on the end of what I decided to call the B.A.M.T. (Big-Ass Map Table), which was in the center of what I considered to be absolute heaven.

Books.

Books all around on shelves. Books absolutely everywhere, lining the walls and the room and I hoped that there were more areas like this because DAMN. BOOKS, man. I LOVE BOOKS.

"No idea." Castiel replied, taking the seat in front of me. Dean hit the button for it to start, and sure enough it did the whole 3-2-1 thing before starting, all grey and white and black and grainy and very vintage.

Dean and Sam didn't answer, just watched, enraptured. This must be important. I heard the camerawoman talk about this being a new type of exorcism. Was this going to be a better way to get rid of demons besides stabbing them or reciting a long (and difficult to memorize) string of latin?

I saw the shift in Dean and Sam's stance the second we caught a glimpse of the girl behind the camera.

"Wait, is that Abbadon?" Sam asked. I turned to stare at him. I knew the name, Abbadon was a demon. Supposedly a very powerful demon.

Please let me be wrong.

"Not kill-y enough." Dean answered after a few uncertain facial expressions. "It's gotta be the, uh, the chick she possessed."

I didn't ask questions, though I already had several. I just watched, paying it the same attention as Castiel and Dean and Sam did.

The camera turned to what seemed like an elderly woman in chains. I shuddered and wrapped a hand around my waist when I saw the black eyes. She said people were dead, that everyone someone had ever loved was dead.

And she was looking right in the camera as she said it.

I shuddered again, feeling very uneasy very fast. The boys and Castiel didn't notice, though. They were too busy watching.

Sam made a comment about the chains looking like the ones in their dungeon, and I had to agree with Castiel when he turned to them and asked the same question I had. He turned back to me, and noticed my discomfort. "Are you alright?" He asked. I nodded, not looking at him. He looked like he wanted to do something, like a comforting gesture, but didn't know how. So he just turned back to the film, and I took a small, steadying breath.

I watched what seemed like the head priest throw holy water on her, watched him and the younger man chant, and watched as the priest slit his own palm.

I watched him shout something, and put his bleeding hand against the demon's mouth. There was blinding light, and the next time we saw the woman….

Her chest was ripped open. You could see the bones, but no organs. I was thankful for that. If there had been more than burnt skin and ribs, or if I'd eaten anything, I would've vomited.

That being said, the option was still on the table.

And the film stopped, the reel clicking just like you'd expect.

"Well, that was weird." Dean said, his voice probably three notches from leaving it's calm. "With three exclamation points."

I had to disagree on that.

That was more than weird with three exclamation points.

That was fucked up. Insane. Completely freaky, with an immeasurable number of exclamation points.

Dean and Sam talked for a little bit about that, about the younger priest living in St. Louis still. They decided to go, and I stood up to join them with Castiel helping me.

"Not you." Dean said, pointing Castiel without looking. "And not you either." His gaze and almost accusatory finger landed on me.

"Sam and Kai are more damaged than I am." Castiel said tiredly. I shot a sharp look at Dean. He told me Sam was fine, if a little ragged.

I watched them argue, and watched him leave. "Just stay here," he ordered. "And get better. Watch after Kai."

Sam shot us both an apologetic look, and I watched them both leave up a large staircase that led outside.

That left Castiel and I standing there, in the room with the B.A.M.T. and the books and the film that still sat in it's player on the table, holding it's absolutely creepy and disturbing film for those brave enough to view it a second time.

"Are you alright?" He asked me quietly.

"Yeah." I lied, still staring at the old movie projector.

"Are you lying?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Habit."

"Alright." He thought for a few moments before speaking again. "Do you want to go back to your room?"

"I don't know." I answered.

"Are you lying again?"

"No."

"Alright." He repeated. "What do you want to do, then?"

"Can I ask some questions?"

"Sure." He helped me sit back down, this time offering me his seat so that my back was to the projector. I accepted it gratefully, and opened up my notebook to the questions I'd scribbled.

"Was the Abbadon they were talking about the Abbadon I think they meant?" I asked first.

"Abbadon is the last remaining Knight of Hell, handpicked by Lucifer himself." Castiel answered. I wrote that down and added another question at the bottom. Lucifer is a real thing. Note to self.

"And the new exorcism, is that possible?"

"I don't know." Castiel answered honestly. "It could be."

"What did the rest of the Latin mean?"

"I didn't understand it clearly enough." Castiel responded. "I only understood the last word, cleanse."

"And getting rid of demons…" I took a deep breath before asking. "Is killing them the only way to get rid of them? The exorcism Dean and Sam taught me, I haven't had to use it, and I don't know what it does."

"No, you can expel the demon without killing the person." Castiel started. "That's what the exorcism does, usually, or sometimes the demon will leave of it's own accord to run and find a new vessel."

"And… You're an angel." I started, uncertain of how to phrase this politely.

"Yes."

"Do you come pre-set looking like humans too or…" I took a deep breath. "Do you possess people as well?"

"An angel can only take control of a proper vessel with their permission." Castiel said firmly. "Demons can and will whether you want it or not."

"Alright. And the possessed person inside you is…"

"My vessel's name was Jimmy Novak." Castiel stated. "He has already passed unto Heaven."

"Ah." I decided not to press that one further. I almost didn't ask my next question, but decided to press forwards. "So Lucifer is the devil?"

"Yes."

"Was he really an angel first?"

"Yes."

"Does that make him your brother?"

"Yes." He didn't laugh at that. It was a straight-faced answer, almost like a confession. "But not one that any angel would want to be associated with. He created demons."

I wondered for a moment if that meant that the angels were all aunts and uncles to demons, but decided not to ask that question. Instead, I took a few moments to just process everything, understand what was real and what was to be asked about the reality of later. Castiel seemed to notice that I was starting to… I guess the proper word was stress. There was so much I didn't know, so much I needed to know not only for my own protection, but because I just had to know. I loved knowledge. I loved learning new things. I wanted to know everything I could, absorb all the knowledge I could.

I just kind of had to figure out how to take it all in, first.

"It's alright." Castiel said, placing an awkward hand on my shoulder as I wrote. I looked over at him to see him… Almost looking like a mix of confused and constipated.

"You're not big on physical interactions, are you?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Many things about what humans do and how they communicate different things, both verbally and non-verbally," he took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "It's very confusing to me how one finger can be good, but a different finger on the same hand can be very, very bad."

I laughed at that. It was actually relaxing, almost, to see the similarities in our situations. I was diving headfirst in to everything Hunter related, and just barely keeping myself from drowning. Castiel was floundering about the kiddy end with floaties, just barely sinking in to it.

I patted the hand on my shoulder, and he removed it quickly. "It's alright." I told him. "I'm kind of doing the same thing with this."

"I could help you." He offered. I turned back and watched him, curious.

"What do you mean?"

"I could do my best to show you how to do… 'this,'" oh my gosh he actually did the air-quotes on the "this." Oh my gosh he was hopeless. "And in return, you could show me how to better imitate and do human interactions."

I thought about it for a moment. A deal with an angel.

Alright, I'll bite.

"Sounds great." I agreed, nodding and smiling. I'm not going to lie, I also just wanted to spend time with the angel. He was nice. He cared.

"Can we… Start now?" He asked uncertainly. "I wish to know how to better apologize to Dean."

"Yeah, sure, no problem." I closed my notebook, and clipped the pen on the front cover. "What's your plan?"

"Plan?" Castiel asked. I nodded. "Right, plan," he sounded like he was making this up as he went. "Sam suggested a food run…" He thought. I decided to help him out.

"Maybe we could go out and do it for them?" I offered. "Surprise them with stuff already waiting so they don't have to worry about it?"

"Yes!" Castiel nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."

"Great." I agreed. Castiel helped me up once again, and even went back to get my backpack for me. From there, we made our way to the stairs. "Oh, hey," I started as we made our way up. "Why is Dean mad at you anyways?"

Castiel's aide faltered for a minute, and in that minute I started falling forwards, fast. He caught me quickly, both arms wrapping just above and below where my stitches were. I let out a sharp breath, trying not to make any more noises.

"I'm sorry." He said, helping to right me to standing once more.

"It's alright, I'm fine." I checked my stitches quickly. Somehow, nothing had torn open.

"I'll explain it to you as we go." Castiel answered after a moment. "It's a… Long story."

"If you don't feel comfortable telling me, you don't have to." I backtracked quickly. The one thing I had learned the most was how to respect a person's privacy.

"No, it's alright." He assured me as we made it out the door. "It's just a story that will take some time to tell, but you deserve to know." He stated. "If you're going to help me, and I you, you deserve to know who it is you've just made a deal with."


	19. Definitely Shock

He was right. The story was long. Winchesters raised from Hell? The apocalypse gone and past? I had been on the right track with the Dick Roman thing, but LEVIATHANS? And PURGATORY?

He gave me time when I requested it, to think it all through and write things down and just let my brain digest all this new information. What's real. What's not real. What I've been oblivious to for so long. What EVERYONE has been oblivious to for so long.

Once he was done, though, we were at the small gas station quik-mart thing. Actually, we'd been sitting in the parking lot for a good twenty minutes before he was finished. I didn't really even look at the name of the place, though. Castiel drove, and I just sat there and figured it all out.

Once I was finished (ish), I closed my notebook and put my hands to my temples. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," I nodded. "No. No I'm not." I looked up at him, smiling slightly. It wasn't a real smile, though. You know that smile that you put on when you don't know what else to do? Like, every option is just so far out of your reach that all you can do is put on a smile and accept/deal with what you've got?

Yeah. It was that kind of smile.

"But I will be." I told him, seeing his worried face. "It's like Dean said. I wasn't born in to this. I'm not an angel or anything. I'm not a prophet. I'm just me, dealing with it as I take it, and it'll just take a little bit for all of this to really become reality, you know?"

From the look on Castiel's face, I could see he didn't get it. "Alright, you said that God has left the building, right? He's real, he's your dad, but he went out for smokes and never came back."

"Not in those exact words, but yes." Castiel answered.

"And that absolutely shook you to your very being. It just demolished something you had believed in for so long, and then afterwards worked so hard to keep that faith alive." I stated. After a few moments, he nodded. "That's kind of what it's like for me. For so long, I've believed in, well… Nothing. I wasn't religious. I didn't believe God existed, or Heaven or Hell or Leviathans or vampires or ghosts or anything along those lines. And even after my family died, I thought that it was just some sort of weirdo master assassin thing with a trick of the light or something I didn't understand." I took a deep breath, catching myself before I began to blabber. "And now I'm not only faced with irrefutable proof that I was wrong for the entirety of my life, but with a whole world, right inside this one, that was staring me right in the face and I couldn't have seen it if I tried without someone pointing it out to me, without someone or something forcing me to see what was and wasn't there." Realization was dawning upon Castiel, and I could see that he understood now.

"You're handling it better than I did." Castiel pointed out. I looked at him, confused. "I went on a… What Sam called a 'Bender' after learning of God's absence."

"Ouch." I muttered. "I didn't think an angel could get drunk."

"I consumed an entire liquor store." The way he said that, it was so dead-pan, I stared at him waiting for a typical human smile to show he was joking.

He wasn't.

"Damn." I muttered.

"The headache afterwards was awful, I wouldn't recommend it." He continued. I snorted trying to choke back a laugh, and that was when I saw him crack a small smile.

I stared at him for a second, almost transfixed by that small smile. If I hadn't known the truth, if I hadn't seen what he could do… He looked like a normal guy. Not an angel. Not a being of immeasurable and immense power.

Just a human guy. A normal human guy.

I wondered if that would be considered a compliment or an insult.

I snapped myself out of my reverie quickly. We were here for a reason. "So, making a 'Please-Forgive-Me' food run," I started. Castiel nodded in agreeance. "Well, first off what do the brothers like?"

"Burgers." He stated. "Beer. Certain magazines. Toilet paper." I tried not to snicker at that one. "Pie."

"Great start, great start." I nodded, opening my notebook again to a fresh sheet. I quickly wrote down the items he'd listed, thinking. "Maybe some eggs and soup, too."

"Eggs and soup?" He asked.

"Eggs are good protein, good quick and dirty breakfast." I explained. "And good if you're not feeling top notch, like how you said Sam was. The soup is kind of more for me, but can be for Sam too." I admitted that last bit sheepishly.

"Alright." He nodded. I tore out the paper, handing it to him. "If you see anything else in there off the list that you think would help, feel free to grab it. And don't worry if they don't have soup, I'll live." I added. "Do you have money?" He searched his pockets before nodding. "Awesome. You should be fine then." I smiled at him. "Go for it!"

He opened his door to leave, and I could feel his thoughts running to a last minute thought as he stood, just barely within the car's doorway. "Do you want to come in with me?" He asked, ducking his head back in to look at me.

"No, I'm good." I said, shaking my head. Castiel nodded, and left to enter the shop.

I smiled, sitting there and just reading through all the new information in my notebook. Holy oil, that's a thing. Angels know the names of all prophets (and no, my name wasn't one). Angels can't read tablets, but an angel did write them. The angel that wrote them, Metatron, he had saved Kevin.

Demons and angels didn't like each other, but had worked for the same side a few times. Angels killed other angels. Castiel had killed many angels, had had his head messed with, and had both times thought he was doing the right thing and both times sorely mistaken.

"This is a mess." I muttered, shutting the book. Once more, my hands went to my temples, and I sat there letting it all sort itself out. I could sympathize with Kevin a lot more, now. He knew more of this stuff, and was burdened with an immense purpose. I almost wanted to apologize to the poor guy.

I looked up after a little bit, and watched Castiel walk out with bags, tailing and trying to talk to an older-looking guy with a bit of a beard.

"The hell?" I muttered. Castiel had left the keys in the ignition, so I grabbed them and wrangled myself out the door. I hit my arm on the side, and choked out a short cry of pain.

Note to self, that cut is still healing.

"Castiel!" I shouted, trying to hurry after him. My legs almost faltered on me, and for a few moments as I followed as fast as I could I stumbled. "CASTIEL!" I shouted again, louder. This time both males stopped on the tail-end of their conversation, turning towards me. The stranger watched me, curious, and I could see Castiel's guilt as I managed to catch up.

"You were Kevin's guardian?" The stranger asked once I caught up.

"Yeah." I stated warily, glancing over at Castiel. The stranger looked back over at him.

"THIS is the girl you grabbed?" He asked him. Castiel nodded, and the guy turned back to looking at me. "Wow. I'm sorry I couldn't get you two."

"Who are you?" I asked. At this point, Castiel seemed to finally find his voice somewhere among his shopping bags.

"Kai, this is Metatron." Metatron shushed him quickly.

"I told you, in public it's MARV." He said, and I stared at him in shock.

"You're…." I couldn't get the rest of the words out. I almost fell back, in all honesty. "You're…" I repeated. He had a bushy grey beard. He wore tweed. He looked like a LIBRARIAN in all honesty. The kind that would shush the kids he didn't like quickly, but secretly hold sweets for those who were good kids.

"Uh-huh." He said (was that condescension in his voice?), nodding.

"Thank you." I said after a minute, catching him by surprise. "You saved Kevin when I couldn't." I explained. "Thank you for pulling him out."

"You're not mad that I didn't get you too?" He asked.

"Could you?"

"No." The Scribe of the Friggin' Absent Lord shook his head. "I could barely get Kevin out, and that's only because I wrote the tablets he reads."

"Then why would I be mad?" I asked. "You did something good."

He thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. "Fair enough." He conceded, turning his attention back to Castiel. "And you left this girl in the car?"

"I… um…" He looked at me, still holding those shopping bags. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." I said, smiling at him almost like how a parent would at a child. Mistakes happen. Important things come up. I could easily understand the need to gravitate towards your own kind. "I'm sorry for interrupting anything, by the way. Please, feel free to continue."

"Oh, I was just going to tell Castiel where to get the best crepes." Metatron answered. "Eugenies in O-HI makes the best crepes."

I blinked, for a moment, and heard Castiel say Metatron's name.

But he was gone.

"Meta," I caught myself quickly. "Marv?!" I turned towards Castiel. "That's a normal angel thing, isn't it? The quick disappearing?"

"Yes, it is." He said, looking up at the sky still. He turned back to look around, seeming frustrated.

"You know," I started. "The crepe place he mentioned is actually pretty good." Castiel looked at me now. "I was in Ohio once or twice, before, well, everything. And once when I was homeless, too. The place he's talking about is actually really great. Great atmosphere, great scenery, and absolutely excellent food." I could see realization dawning on him, now. "I can get the groceries, as long as you help me to the car."

"You wouldn't be upset?" He asked. I smiled back at him.

"You just told me the majority of your life story, which involves a lot of killing and death and mistakes, and I'm still here, aren't I?" I asked.

"I believe you're still in shock, actually." He countered. I just shrugged.

"You're probably right." I admitted. "But I'm still here. I've been with dangerous people before, and I've found that no matter their past crimes, a person is always capable of good. No matter how awful their actions have been, those people with a past that haunts them," I took a deep breath, finding the right words. "They're the ones who are the kindest, the ones who work the hardest to protect what's important." I smiled at him, nodding my head. "So, yeah, I won't be upset. At some point later, it'll probably all come crashing down and the shock will wear off, but right now I'm pretty ok. Or at least," I looked down at my body that most definitely needed a shower, or at least a bath. "I'm about as close to ok as I can be, and I'm alright with that."

So Castiel helped me get the groceries in the car, and just did the same disappearing thing that Metatron had.

"I've successfully thrown in my lot with an angelic hermit, a once-God that had done a lot of good and bad, and two brothers that had been through enough to drive a man insane, much less two." I muttered, starting up the car. I rubbed my legs, trying to get the feeling back in them again. Once I was certain they wouldn't die on me, I started driving back to the….

Bunker.

That's what Castiel had told me it was called. The Bunker.

"Oh yeah. Definitely shock." I decided, putting the car in reverse.

Definitely shock.


	20. Trace

When I got back to the…

Shit, what had Castiel told me it was called again? I swear, it started with a "B," and it was two syllables. Made me think of a Cold War hideout.

BUNKER!

It's called the Bunker.

So I parked nearby the front entrance, off the road enough for cars to really not notice, and I stared at the door.

Then the few grocery bags.

Then my legs.

Then the door once more.

Then up at the sky.

Castiel had had yet to rejoin me. I considered calling, or, well, praying. Do angels even use cell phones?

But, speaking of phones, mine had buzzed in my pocket while I'd been driving. I had a voicemail. "I'm totally procrastinating." I muttered, looking back first to the bags, then my still sad and underused legs. "Oh, I hope there's a treadmill somewhere in that super-secret Bunker." I muttered, opening the voicemail and bringing the phone to my ear.

"Hey, Kai," I heard Sam's voice. "Noticed you and Cas were gone from the Bunker. Drop a line at some point letting us know what's up. We had to leave for Prosperity, Indiana, so we'll be gone for a day or two. Keep track of Castiel, get your strength up, and feel free to re-stock the Bunker with some food or something." One already kind of half-failed, one still in progress, and one kind of half-done. "We'll call you with an update when we can, but again, call us back once you can just so we can keep updated on your end. Stay in the Bunker once you get back unless you have Cas with you."

"And pick up some pie!" I heard Dean's voice shout the last request before the voicemail ended.

"Well, Castiel actually got that." I muttered. They always called him Cas. Why Cas?

I was almost tempted to try it myself. Just to say the one syllable, like the brothers do.

"No, that's stupid." I muttered. "I don't even know him very well. Nicknames are for friends." I said that out loud, remembering that I had given them a sort of nickname for me. "The difference is, though, that Castiel IS his name, and that their nickname for him is just an offshoot. Mine isn't even spelled the same."

I hadn't told anybody my actual name in a long time. I hadn't even told Kevin, though he'd asked once. He wasn't stupid, he figured that Kai wasn't my name.

And Castiel knew, I guess. But he respected what I wanted to go by right now.

"And I'm still procrastinating." I decided, snagging the grocery bags. I shut off the car and massaged my legs, building up my courage. Once I was certain I could walk, I got out, and brought the groceries with me.

Somehow, and I really mean SOMEHOW, I made it in to the Bunker, and down to the BAMT without breaking anything, or myself for that matter.

That doesn't mean I didn't trip a few times, of course. That only means I didn't destroy anything.

"Thank whoever I stopped to get some soap." I muttered, looking at the bag containing shampoo, conditioner, body soap, and a nice little loofah. I couldn't help but be happy that I could take another proper shower.

I double checked the timestamp on the voicemail. They'd called a good hour-ish ago.

I wandered around for a little bit until I found the kitchen, and put away the eggs and beer and other things that needed to be cold. There was pie, and I put it in there as well.

Then I moved to my room. I hadn't gotten a good chance to check out the area, and it was actually kind of cool. Same size as the room I'd had before, with a personal bathroom attached. There was a dresser in there that, when I opened it, I saw had my old clothes that I thought I'd lost from being kidnapped, they were in the dressers all somewhat-nicely folded.

"Oh I need to thank someone today." I decided, picking out a change of clothes to wear instead of, well… Clothes that looked like I'd put them through the most extreme military exercise you could think of; all ripped and dirty and grimy and shit like that.

Bout damn time I took a shower and got a better change of clothes.

So I did, and sweet lord it felt great. I had to be ginger about my stitches, but for the most part I was able to do this in a relatively painless matter. It wasn't my first time trying to clean myself off a little bit after having stitches.

Once I was finally more cleaned up, more dressed, and more refreshed, I took a seat on my bed and called Sam back.

He answered after a few rings. "Hey, Kai."

"Hey, Sam." I greeted. "How goes the drive?"

"Going good. We should be there in a few hours, easy." He answered. "Where did you and Cas go?"

"Supply run."

"Is he with you?" I heard Dean ask.

"No."

"Where is he?" Sam asked.

"Doing an angel thing, I think." I don't know why I didn't just tell them he was with Metatron doing, well, whatever. Then again, it wasn't my thing to tell them.

He'd kept my name a secret. I'll keep his whereabouts quiet until he's in trouble.

"Ah, great." I heard Dean comment.

"Look, if you see him, just keep keeping tabs on him, ok? Don't worry about it. You still need to get better." Sam told me.

"I know. I'll be fine, don't worry." I almost felt like I was talking to my dad before I'd leave for work or something. "Is there anything else I can do for you guys?"

"Not right now." Sam said. "Wait, can you trace a phone call?"

"WHAT?" I asked.

"Yeah, do you know how to do that?" Dean asked.

"Do you two?" I asked in response.

"Not like this." Sam answered. "Look, if not, I understand. It was a long shot. We just had to try every option."

"I can make a few calls," I told him. "But I can't promise anything, alright? All I can do is ask a few people, see if I can call in any favors."

"Alright. Thank you." Sam sounded… Actually pretty sincere.

"No problem, man."

"Well, we'll be in Prosperity pretty soon-ish, so we'll call you then, alright?"

"No problem." I nodded. "Hey, before I forget, you guys have a laptop somewhere I can use?"

"What for?" Sam asked cautiously.

"Some of the people I can get a hold of don't use cell phones. Email only." I answered. "Plus, I wanted to do some research on a few things."

"Did she just say she WANTS to do research?" I heard Dean say. "Sam, let her use your laptop, man. She's a nerd just like you!"

"Hey, research isn't a bad thing!" Sam answered.

"Can I use it?" I asked again. Sam said yes, told me where it was, and both brothers said their goodbyes before the line went dead.

For the next… hell, I don't know how many hours, I did research. I got in contact with a few people I knew who said they could, but the call would have to be in progress at the time. I thanked them, promised I'd call or email when I needed them, and kept researching different things to write in my notebook.

I understood how Kevin felt translating like mad as I did my research. There was so much to cover, such a lack of understanding as to what does and doesn't work and which sources were reliable.

I just got to the point where I based it off the general information I'd been given, and from there cross-referenced it with whatever was the most common thing among different sites.

I missed Kevin's pep and headache pills. They were probably helpful whenever he just needed to push himself away and let his mind settle.

So when I needed to settle, I explored. I found a weapons room, an archives room, I wandered in to the kitchen again, and there were still books. Thousands upon thousands upon millions of books, some fiction, some non-fiction, and some handwritten by what I had to assume were prior occupants of the Bunker.

So I grabbed five, brought them back to my laptop, and started reading and writing and researching and reading again and it didn't make my headaches any better, but it certainly made crawling through the information easier.

It was hours before I got another call. It was Sam again. "Hey, what's up?" I asked, still reading.

"I need you to trace it. Now!" His voice was urgent, making me sit up automatically.

"Who's phone?" They had my full attention now.

"Dean's!" He almost shouted, and I could almost hear the phone being thrown to the side. I put his call on hold, and dialed up the one person I knew would still be up at….

SHIT. How long had I been doing this?

"What's up, buttercup?" She answered. Thank you Danny, and thank whoever that gave you problems with people telling you no.

"I need you to trace a call. It's urgent." I told her quickly. I could feel her perk up at the urgency I now held, both in excitement and attention.

"Who're they calling?" She asked. I listed Dean's number quickly, and could hear her tapping at her computer she always kept with her intently. Danny hadn't quite been homeless like me, but she'd helped out a lot to those of us without a bed to go to.

While she typed, I flipped back to Sam's call. "KAI!" He shouted. I pulled it away from my ear for a second at that.

"I'm here, I'm here." I told him. "I had to get a hold of my person."

"Tell them to hurry, now!" He ordered. "Dean! Keep looking!" I heard things being moved, quickly and erratically.

Somewhere, in the background, I heard someone choking to death.

I flipped it back to Danny's line. "I need that trace now."

"Gimme a bit!" She replied. "The line is seriously spoofed up to the max. I don't usually see this level of security unless it's on government lines." I could feel the pause in her voice, in her typing, for just a moment. "Am I trying to trace a government call? Are you in a conspiracy?"

"No, I'm not Danny." I replied. With a lack of respect for authority came her wanting to know every truth and uncover every secret. I was actually amazed that she didn't know a thing about this hunting stuff. "But this is important. There's a person's life at stake, here."

"I'm working it. Just keep them on the line for another minute. That's all I need." She told me. I switched the line back to Sam.

"She's almost got it. Keep Dean on the line with them for just a little bit longer." I told him. He didn't seem to be listening, though. He was still searching, still trying to find something. I could hear the person choking more clearly now. It was a woman.

I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I listened for a few more minutes. I listened to Dean's gruff voice, somewhere a little more distant, talking with someone angrily and distressed. I heard him tell them to stop, to call it off. I heard Crowley's name.

I heard Sam's distressed voice talking to the girl, telling her they were going to save her, that she would be alright. I heard him searching, still.

I heard the woman die.

I heard her breath her last breath.

I flipped it back again to Danny. "Tell me you got that trace." I told her. I held my breath as she typed a few more things before answering.

Please have that address.

Please tell me I didn't just hear a person, somewhere in Indiana, die for nothing.

Please tell me that Sam and Dean didn't count on me for nothing.

Please have that damn address.

"Do you have a pen and paper?" She asked. I let out a sigh of relief. "I had to trace it back past a few different towers, they seriously bounced and scrambled the shit out of their line, but I got it."

I wrote down what she told me, thanked her, and moved back to Sam's line. "I've got Crowley's address." I told them. "I got it."

"Good." Dean answered, now. "What is it?"

"I want to come with you." I stated. "To get Crowley."

"Not a chance, kiddo." He replied. His voice was angry, still, but I wasn't going to back down.

"He ordered the hit on my family, Dean." I almost didn't recognize my own voice. It was… Determined, but not in the normal way. Like I was much older, and knew that I would stand firm to my choice, and knew that he would understand it too. "Either I'm coming with you guys, or I leave right now on my own to take my chances."

Dean didn't answer for a few minutes.

"We'll be there tomorrow morning." He said. "And leave that afternoon. Are you sure you're up for it?"

I rubbed my legs, but didn't bother thinking about them when I answered. "I'm not letting him get away for any of this."

"Alright." I could hear the nod, almost. Firm. Understanding. He got that this was important to me. He'd probably been in this same situation before.

He hung up, and I sat back, looking at was in front of me. "I have work to do." I decided, standing up. I'd seen some nice looking daggers in the weapons room, and I was used to using small blades. I needed to make sure I was good with those daggers, and good with a few different guns, and that I could do a decent Devil's Trap, and that I remembered that damn exorcism.

Not the one to get rid of the demon.

The one to blow out it's chest.

"You're not making it out of there alive." I muttered, standing up. I walked to the weapons room, all pain in my legs gone in my decision to keep going.

After all, I had work to do.

I couldn't let anything stop me.


	21. It's Not Supernatural Until a Death

It was a trap.

We were doomed from the start.

 _I_ was doomed from the start.

We'd gone in to a large mansion-like place. Castiel had joined up with us, but there were wardings in an area. Not all over the house, just in one specific spot. The closer we got to it, the worse he felt.

We saved that room for last. It looked too… Too inviting. The doors were open. The lights were off. We almost didn't search it, but after Dean laid out a Devil's Trap outside the door we decided to go in.

Dean was in the lead. Sam followed. I was behind him, and Castiel brought up the rear. We were all walking towards the door slowly, and I almost missed it. I almost missed the wire.

But Dean wasn't seeing it. He was about to walk right in.

"Dean, stop!" I shouted, running quickly towards him. I pulled him back just before he crossed over it, and in the process had pushed myself forwards.

The doors had slammed behind me, and a single gunshot was fired.

Then the lights went on, and I saw a single, familiar demon.

Crowley was smiling. The little fucker was actually smiling as his hand still held the smoking pistol. "No." I whispered, looking down at my stomach. I'd been shot in the gut, a merciless blow that would take a long time to end me. I fell, then. My knees caved out from under me, and my dagger clattered to the floor as the King sauntered towards me.

"Oh, I'm afraid so, dearie." He replied, pocketing the pistol. "Ah, but what's it matter anyways? You're just another pawn in their game, their life." Crowley kneeled down, picking up the small blade. "Too bad. You might've been useful to one side or the other. Might've is the key word, here, of course."

"Go to hell." I muttered.

"Haven't you heard?" Crowley asked, standing in front of me. He used his foot to tip my chin upwards, forcing me to look him in the eyes. They were solid red. No pupil, no iris, no whites or blacks or browns or blues. Just solid, swirling smoke red. "That's where I call home."

"Assbutt." I coughed out, remembering the story Castiel had told me. I had been afraid to come, but at the same time I knew I needed to. Dean was doing preparations, arguing with Sam about something or other and motioning to me. Castiel had returned maybe an hour before they had, and when questioned said that he had met with Metatron. While Dean and Sam were talking with each other, he was telling me about what he'd said to his older brother before setting him on fire. I'd laughed a little, unable to picture it. Castiel seemed so peaceful, but he'd been honest about his past; about the death he'd brought to his own kind.

Still, the story had settled my nerves a little.

"Charming. I see you've been taking lessons from the boys." Crowley replied, setting his foot down as he waved a hand at me. I was flung back I don't know how many feet, and felt my head rebound against the marble walls behind me. "Tell me, which one of them has managed to land a trophy spot as your first?"

"The same one that nailed your mom." I replied with a shaky breath. "Ask her later. She was probably easy enough that all of them got a turn, so I might have to clarify the which-got-what thing." I started to try and stand, feeling for the knife I always kept in my boots.

"Wow. You think you can still fight, don't you?" Crowley asked with a smirk.

"I'm not dead yet." I replied. "Shot me… In the stomach. Remember?"

"Stomach wounds do take a while, don't they?" He looked at me, an expression of idle contemplation on his face as I gripped my pocketknife firmly. "Now, I could meet you on your terms, knife to knife," I saw him twitch his hand, and I was sent sailing through the air in to the wall on the left. "Or I could kill you now, save myself the trouble." Sailing again, this time to the ceiling. "Or I could leave you up there, as a little memento of their past. Something you wouldn't understand, but they'd get perfectly well." I was right above him. Crowley wasn't even looking at me. All it would take was a simple drop….

I let go of the small blade, watching it fall with perfect precision towards Crowley's head. It stopped a few feet above the target, spinning around to face me. "Nice try." Crowley muttered, looking up at me as the knife sailed upwards in to my leg. I howled in agony as I was dropped to the floor, impaling the knife deeper in to my body. I screamed again, louder and full of more pain than I'd ever imagined I could have.

I heard bangs on the door outside, for the first time, like someone trying to break in. "KAI!" A shout from Sam.

"Looks like the cavalry is getting persistent." Crowley smirked, checking his watch. "I'll meet with them later, I guess. Ta-ta." With that the door burst in towards me, and Crowley disappeared.

Castiel got to me first. He rolled me over gently. I wasn't crying. I couldn't cry. But I was in a hell of a lot of pain. "Kai," he whispered, seeing the wounds. He looked up at Dean and Sam as they searched the perimeter for Crowley, then turned back to me. "Kai, I, I'm so sorry."

"Can you heal her?" Dean asked, coming round to face me. His face fell the second he saw how I looked. "Shit."

"What, what happened?" Sam was next. His face could've matched Dean's.

"I probably could've picked a better fight." I said with a weak laugh. Nobody else was laughing, though. It was probably because the small bit of a laugh had a sad, wet sound to it.

"Cas, can you heal her?" Sam repeated Dean's words, looking away from me. Cas shook his head sadly.

"I'm sorry. Her wounds are too extensive, and I don't have enough power. The wardings," he looked sick, almost. "They're engraved in to the walls." I tried to look around, and indeed saw that there were strange markings along the space surrounding me. Dean shook his head, walking to the nearest wall. I didn't have to see it to know that the sound that followed was his fist against the surface, landing at full power.

"Damn it!" He roared, punching again. I winced slightly, and Sam walked over to try and calm his brother down. I looked up in to Castiel's eyes, watching him as he watched me with a searching gaze.

"Nothing you can do, huh?" I asked. I didn't feel the pain any more. I didn't feel much, really, except for Castiel's warm hand on my back and the blood in my mouth. He shook his head sadly.

"I'm sorry. I should be able to do something." He replied. I could hear the anger directed towards himself that was starting to poison his thoughts. "Anything. I should be able to heal you. I've brought people back from the dead, from Hell itself. I've dragged Dean and Sam through time, dispelled angels with a sigil carved in to the flesh of my own vessel, fought my older brothers and won; I've travelled miles and miles, seen so much horror and sadness and still survived through it all. But I can't save you." He looked so sad, so hurt, so angry. "Why can't I save you?"

"You can't save everyone, Castiel." I replied, putting a hand to his face. It was stained with blood. He didn't care. "Are you really an angel?" He looked shocked at my question. "The what-the-hell factor has finally kind of worn off. I believed you guys because nothing else made sense. Nothing else still makes sense," I shrugged, and man did it hurt to do that. "But I just have to ask, one last time. Is this all real?"

"It's all real, Kai." He replied. "Everything, demons and angels and prophets and whatever else Dean and Sam have told you, it's all real."

And I believed him.

"Does that mean Heaven is real?" I asked. It wasn't long, now. Blood loss would get me, most definitely.

"Yes."

"Do you think I'll go to Heaven?" I was almost scared at that one. I hadn't believed in so long.

"Yes." He said again. I smiled at him.

"Promise me you'll visit?" I requested. At that, he shook his head.

"I'm an outcast from my own kind." He reminded me, looking up. "To go in to Heaven would make things bad for you."

"You'll be an angel again, Castiel, just like the others. I promise." I replied, removing my hand from his face. He looked back at me from the sudden loss of contact. I gave him a pained hug, pulling him close to whisper a few more words. "Find me when you are, wherever I end up. Don't try to save me," I looked away to cough, feeling more blood fall from my lips. "I'm not worth saving. I just want to see you one more time." I closed my eyes, and felt myself falling. Falling, falling, falling so far that not even the distant screams of my name could ever bring me back.


	22. Sacrifice, 3rd Person POV

"Kai." Castiel said, feeling the sudden limp stillness in her. "Kai!" No. No no no no no no no no no. Not her. She didn't deserve this. She was good. She didn't have anyone else's blood on her hands, not like the rest of us. "KAI!"

"What happened?" Sam asked, him and his brother rushing over. "Is she," he didn't have to finish his sentence.

"She died, Sam." Dean said flatly. _She died while I was too busy being pissed,_ Dean thought. _She died, unnoticed, because I was too busy berating myself to watch her and try to be there for her. When did I stop watching out for people like Charlie, like Kai? When did I start to focus on my own anger?_

 _She died while I was comforting my brother,_ Sam thought. _She died, and I didn't even see her go, because I was more concerned for Dean than for the girl on her deathbed, the girl I barely knew. When did I stop caring for those that joined us? When did my sole focus become my brother?_ "Cas, are you," Castiel shook his head.

"She never called me Cas." He whispered. "Just Castiel, like I was a stranger to her. We all were strangers and she trusted us."

Sam stood there for a moment, stiller than a tiger. Then he roared, turning to shoot at the window behind us. The glass fell in small shattered fragments outwards. Once the cartridge was empty he threw it on the ground, spinning back to them once more. "We didn't even learn her name!" He shouted. "We knew her as Kai, because that was what she was asked to be called. But we never learned her last name. We never learned where she was from. She called us for help, and we went to help her, but we were so focused on the damn trials we never took a chance to look at her!" Dean bent down, retrieving Kai's blood-streaked wallet from her front left pocket in her jeans. He flipped it open to find a driver's license.

"Her name was Kylie. Kylie Dillinger." Castiel replied, saying her name before Dean had the chance to read it. "She was from Cheboygan, Michigan."

Dean examined the wallet for a moment longer before tossing it to Sam. "Happy?"

"NO!" He replied, letting the object fall to the floor. "She needed our help, and then made damn sure she came with us. She looked after Kevin for us, got hurt for us, protected our secrets when she could've easily decided to tell Crowley everything! Without her, one of us would've been dead tonight, but instead she was here, and it was her gone!" Sam pointed at Kai, no, Kylie's body, her eyes still gazing lifelessly at the ceiling.

"What's your point, Sam?!" Dean shouted back.

"MY POINT IS THAT WE SHOULD'VE AT LEAST LEARNED HER DAMN NAME BEFORE SHE DIED, DEAN!" He screamed. As the brothers fought and argued, neither of them noticed Castiel take the wallet from the floor and place it in his pocket.

"I won't forget you, Kai." He whispered. "And I will save you." From there he picked up Kylie, closed her eyes, and carried her out of the room. This girl wouldn't have a hunter's funeral. She wasn't a hunter. Instead she would be buried properly, like a normal human.

That way, when Castiel found a way to save her, she would have something to come back to.

 **XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

Sam and Dean made the deal with Crowley, unwilling and unable to hear of one more person dying because of their trials. They made the deal, and they double-crossed the son of a bitch. "This is for Kylie, you son of a bitch." Sam said as he slammed the Impala's trunk closed.

 **XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

Castiel sat with Metatron across from a bar as he explained the second trial. "No killing?" Castiel asked. He had seen enough death for a lifetime, but now… Now he couldn't take it anymore. When he saw the face of the Nephilim in his mind, it was replaced with Kylie's, and how he couldn't save either of them; how there hadn't been any good way to let both of them live.

"No killing." Metatron assured him. After a few minutes, he spoke again. "I'm sorry about Kai." He said.

"Her name was Kylie." Castiel said automatically. Metatron took a deep breath, thinking before continuing.

"I'm sorry about Kylie." He fixed his sentence, saying each word with care. "I know she was important to you, important enough for you to try and save more than once. And she was good, too. She didn't hold me accountable for things I couldn't control, nor you or Sam or Dean." Both angels watched the bar for a minute longer before Metatron spoke again.

"Why was she important to you?" He asked. It had been eating at him. Very rarely did angels take an interest in humans without orders to, he knew that. So what would make Castiel want to take an interest in her?

"She said thank you." Castiel replied after a few minutes, still staring at the bar. His mind wasn't on it, though. He saw her, in his mind's eye, in that alley praying and thanking him and asking if he was alright later on, continually thanking him and hoping he was still alive, still ok, still doing good things. It was an odd thing, for a human to pray asking for nothing but hope that God was alive and well, for a human to simply thank him so much without any real religious reason, but she had.

They sat there for a little longer in silence, with one angel's vessel looking old, and the other angel's vessel bearing eyes that were burdened with too much. Then they focused to the task at hand, because Castiel needed a focus, needed something that wasn't Kylie in his mind. He needed the focus of acquiring Cupid's bow.

 **XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

"Do you know why I picked that sweet, innocent child you boys adopted to be a target?" Crowley asked, sneering at Sam. He knew what the endgame was, but he didn't believe it would work.

Sam ignored him, pacing about the room, waiting.

"Her mother was possessed by a demon." He continued. If he could get Sam close enough, he could get some blood, try and make a call. Sam still ignored him, though, so Crowley went right on ahead and continued. "A demon you and your brother despised, then for some reason were fine working with."

"Does the name 'Meg' ring a bell to you?" He asked. That made Sam pause, stop to look at him. Crowley just smiled. "That's right. You boys adopted the daughter of her meatsuit. We wanted information on where that little rebellious twat went and hid. But after we found her," Crowley did his best shrug. "Then it was just personal, you know? A human girl, running away and successfully hiding from demons that she didn't even know were real. That's bad press, right there. If one person can do it, why can't they all do it?" Sam was agitated, now. Oh, he was so close to getting within biting distance.

"Just think, if you boys hadn't let her come with you that night, she might still be here with you!" He said, laughing. "She might get to hear this information herself, instead of dying and still wondering why her!"

Sam was about to do it, about to strike him and strike him good. But he stopped himself, at the last second, and instead went outside.

 _Bugger_ , the demon thought to himself.

 **XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

Metatron was a traitor. He didn't want to lock the angels up in Heaven, he wanted to cast them all out, and Sam was going to die if he completed his trials.

And he cut Castiel's grace out of him, smiling all the while as he did it. Ordering him to make his own stories, to make babies, to live out a normal and happy life as a human.

"I'll even send you back with someone to help you." He said cheerily. Castiel's eyes went wide in fear and hope. "You seemed to like the human well enough. Write your epic story with her."

And the spell was completed.

 **XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

Kylie sat in the living room, with her family. It was family game night, and Mom had picked Scrabble. Kylie liked that her hair was so similar to her mom's. The dark brown waves, they were gorgeous.

Mom placed a word down, getting a triple point with the E following Kylie's H.

Kylie had spelled Heaven going down.

Mom had spelled Hell going across.

Her brothers, Josiah and Art, they had dad's hair. Art had dad's eyes, which meant he had his need for glasses. It was Art's turn when the doorbell rang.

The doorbell wasn't supposed to ring.

But someone entered anyways, and everything felt wrong to Kylie. Something felt wrong as an older looking gentleman in a tweed vest and professor-type pants strode in to their living room, whisking away the rest of her family like they were nothing.

"Your purpose has had yet to be fulfilled." He said ominously, offering Kylie his hand. She knew she shouldn't take it, knew that something was wrong…

But she took it anyways. And as she did, the room lit up with a bright light, all emanating from the man, and she felt herself being thrown far away from her family.

 **XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx**

Castiel watched his brethren fall, and somewhere far away Dean and Sam did the same.

But somewhere else, farther away, a body was transported from its shallow grave in to an alleyway. The difference was, this body has a soul, now. The soul that had resided in it beforehand.

And Kylie Dillinger sat up straight, gasping for air, and watched as the angels fell above her. "No." She whispered, watching the sky. She knew, somehow, what it was. After all, meteors didn't have wings burning off of them. Meteors didn't have people inside of them.

Meteors didn't crash land twenty yards in to a wall, and fall down flat and dead as a person with skeletal wings burnt in to the concrete beside them.

"No."


	23. Letter From The Author

Ok, so, it's WriKai here, and I just wanted to say thank you all so much for reading and reviewing and following this story and sticking through 22 chapters of my work. This is the first fanfiction that I've ever posted, and I was really nervous at first about doing so. But you all seem to like it, and I feel much more confident now about it, so I'm going to keep posting, I guess.

However, I have never been a fan of reading fanfics that are over 20 chapters. I'm sorry, I know it's bad, but at that point all I can think is that I'd rather read it in book form than one long story under a single name.

So that's kind of what I'm going to do, since this cuts off right at the end of season 8 anyways. Don't worry, though! I'm not done writing this! The next part will be under the name "Learning to Survive Again," and I hope you all go and read that part as well. It'll have chapters, it'll be updated whenever I can, which will hopefully be an every other day kind of thing, so yeah. OH, and it also will MOST DEFINITELY EXPAND ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KYLIE AND CASTIEL! I promise. Like, cross my heart promise.

That's kind of it.

Thank you all again so much for giving me the confidence to put my ideas out there in the world!


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